Opinions? Wife and I were baffled. Was this science fiction? Were the “protagonists” having visions? Were there no security cameras at or near the grocery store? Was Kate stolen or did she just shift into a different universe/time the way the boy on the Underground is apparently the new baby about to be born? And how the heck do you so easily forget a missing child? 90 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. [I’m thinking that the people who “adapted” McEwan’s novel must have left out some significant pieces.]
I agree. It was absolutely terrible. Not Masterpiece quality at all. I watched only because of Benedict Cumberbatch.
DH and I agree completely. We were totally bored. It was dreadful. I didn’t read the book, and now I surely won’t.
Full agreement. I only watched to the end because I thought it would make sense at some point. DH was the smart one that left the room.
Perhaps the book worked. I haven’t read it, nor do I want to with this intro. In any case, this production failed utterly. (IMHO)
Thanks, will delete from DVR . If I want to be baffled, I will watch the news.
Interesting - on Rotten Tomatoes, 80% of critics like the movie but only 38% of the audience! I’m glad to see this thread, because I won’t waste my time on it. I wouldn’t have let DH watch it, anyway, because he can’t handle any movie dealing with the loss of a child. He couldn’t even take “Finding Nemo,” seriously.
I had serious reservations about watching it for exactly that reason, @MaineLonghorn, and it was definitely heart-wrenching in places – interspersed with the lengthy periods of complete bewilderment.
From what I understand about the novel it was about the journey of people working through loss, or possible loss. I think that’s why what actually happened to Kate wasn’t dealt with. It wasn’t her story.
Kate’s grandmother “saw” the reflection of her son in the window of the bar and the realization of what she’d be losing influenced her decision to continue her pregnancy.
Kate’s dad felt enormous guilt after she disappeared and imagined he saw and heard her at every turn. He held onto the hope he could find her. Whether his hope fed his visions or the visions inspired the hope is debatable. But I don’t think what he saw and heard was any more real than what his mom saw in the bar.
Kate’s mom seemed to have given up hope of finding her and couldn’t deal with the constant disappointment of the dad’s empty searches. The birth of their 2nd child leads them to talk about Kate’s disappearance and I think is supposed to represent their start on the journey to accept that Kate may never be recovered. I think the boy on the Underground symbolizes the new baby in the same way the face the grandmother saw in the bar window symbolized Kate’s dad. This is the future that could be.
I think the novel sounds intruiging. How people deal with such a profound loss is an interesting question and I appreciate that the author left the reader in the same place as the parents. Some people never get a resolution. I think the movie is just a poor adaptation.
@austinmshauri : I agree with your final sentence 100%. I think they did McEwan a great disservice by this adaptation, but I’m not sure I agree that the characters did not “see” the things they “saw.” One of the many things this adaptation left out (if I recall correctly what I read last night from a synopsis of the novel) is that the editor’s wife was a theoretical physicist with “unique” ideas about time and space. Hmmmmm. And then we have the editor writing some report about the relevance of children’s literacy and the Prime Minister and Home Secretary are so concerned about his decision to leave the government that they enlist this private citizen to check on him? That sounds like the CIA experimenting with LSD. And I think the reference to the new baby as “a brother” precludes treating him as a mere symbol. That’s my take, anyway, to the extent it makes any sense. This might have worked as a three-part series, like “Unforgotten” (and I cannot wait for the next of that one) or the Tennison back story. As a stand-alone 90-minute show, it tried to do too much and failed abysmally.
@aboutthesame, You’re right. I’d forgotten the part about the editor’s wife. I think they threw out so many scenes to fit it into 90 minutes that they lost the story in the process.
@austinmshauri : I may actually try to read the book – but not right now. B-)
I haven’t read the book and was very confused by the storyline of the editor. I kept thinking it would have a purpose. It didn’t seem to relate much to the rest of the plot except for the funeral at the end???
Let me spare you all. I just speed-read [sped-read?] the book, and I think it may be the biggest pile of manure I have ever read in my life. It is written in a very formal. plodding, dense style that is more suited to bureaucratic documents than a novel. It sheds no light on the mysteries of the show, and, in fact, I want to give the adapters credit for turning a turgid 250 pages (in which poor little Kate is hardly more than an afterthought) into 90 minutes of something that was at least perplexing.
@AboutTheSame, Thank you for donating time out of your life for our benefit. So the filmmakers gamely attempted to adapt a horrible book. Surely there are good books left that could have been used instead. What a waste.
Indeed. I now know better than to pay any attention to the Whitbread Prize. The Booker Prize has been on my short of list of “I don’t agree” for years.