Bill and Wendy Ainscow are a middle class couple living in Birmingham. One night they both take an overdose of sleeping tablets but are unsuccessful in their joint suicide attempt and wake up in hospital. The reason for their desperation is their 32 year old daughter Lisa. Lisa has a form of Asberger's that means she has to shop, fears germs, loves shoes and hates her father. Bill has been stealing from his post office to try and fund his daughter's habits and has been given a custodial sentence, leaving Wendy to cope on her own.
I was interested in seeing this film because I had read about this story in the papers well, a few articles following the suicide of Bill. Sadly though it seems that the writers here have also only the newspapers to go off, or at least their only aims seem to have been to deliver the story at the level of the papers. I say this because the film starts with the basic pointers and doesn't really go beyond them. Bill is at the bottom of his pit; Wendy is weak willed and Lisa is manipulative. This is where we start and more or less this is where we end. The film delivers obvious emotions in the way one would expect from an ITV Sunday night drama and it is lazy and rather dull.
I waited for the script to do something more interesting with the characters and develop their pain into the realm of being real but I waited in vain. Nothing really came beyond the basic stance we started with and it was not long before I was bored of the constant, samey emotion from the characters. Spall sets his autopilot for "glum" and just stays there. He is never a real person and his performance is weak. Blethyn is not so poor but she has little more to work with in regards the material so she just keeps doing the same thing over and over in the hope that it will be good enough and, in fairness, it is all the material seems to want from her. Staton is more lively although her character is so poorly written that who knows what to think of her; she does well in regards emotion but she comes across as manipulative and lazy rather than sick which I suppose is part of the mystery but doesn't help matters.
Overall then a very basic Sunday night ITV drama based on a true story that manages to be worthless for those of us who read the short articles surrounding the story. The basic building blocks are put in place but not built on and instead we just sit and stare at them without any insight or commentary. The cast are so-so because the script leaves them with nowhere to go or nothing to explore and the whole thing just gets by on the tragic emotion of the situation which might be enough for some viewers but not for me.
I was interested in seeing this film because I had read about this story in the papers well, a few articles following the suicide of Bill. Sadly though it seems that the writers here have also only the newspapers to go off, or at least their only aims seem to have been to deliver the story at the level of the papers. I say this because the film starts with the basic pointers and doesn't really go beyond them. Bill is at the bottom of his pit; Wendy is weak willed and Lisa is manipulative. This is where we start and more or less this is where we end. The film delivers obvious emotions in the way one would expect from an ITV Sunday night drama and it is lazy and rather dull.
I waited for the script to do something more interesting with the characters and develop their pain into the realm of being real but I waited in vain. Nothing really came beyond the basic stance we started with and it was not long before I was bored of the constant, samey emotion from the characters. Spall sets his autopilot for "glum" and just stays there. He is never a real person and his performance is weak. Blethyn is not so poor but she has little more to work with in regards the material so she just keeps doing the same thing over and over in the hope that it will be good enough and, in fairness, it is all the material seems to want from her. Staton is more lively although her character is so poorly written that who knows what to think of her; she does well in regards emotion but she comes across as manipulative and lazy rather than sick which I suppose is part of the mystery but doesn't help matters.
Overall then a very basic Sunday night ITV drama based on a true story that manages to be worthless for those of us who read the short articles surrounding the story. The basic building blocks are put in place but not built on and instead we just sit and stare at them without any insight or commentary. The cast are so-so because the script leaves them with nowhere to go or nothing to explore and the whole thing just gets by on the tragic emotion of the situation which might be enough for some viewers but not for me.