On BBC2 tomorrow, Saturday Jan 14th 2006
I haven't seen it before but I'm curious since I went to school with Matthew and Rececca Pidgeon.
shareI watched it and thought it a slight improvement on the older version, but the older brother seemed strangely aloof and not really all that emotionally tied to the family - perhaps his part could have been beefed up a little.
shareThe whole thing seemed rather stiff to me. Part of that can be put down to the time it was set in, but much I think, is due to Mamet's handling of the story, making it like a play on film. The actors seemed to move to very precise places in front of the camera which meant there was no flow to the performances.
I have to agree that Matthew's performance made his character look aloof and detached. I haven't seen him since we left school, so I don't think he'll be knocking on my door to complain! :-D
Overall, it was interesting but it didn't really engage me.
I agree about the overall stiffness of the piece. It really needed something to light a fire under it; I kept wanting to get more passionately involved but couldn't. Perhaps instead of all that talk of what was happening in the case we could have had a few actual courtroom scenes. This is another aspect of how it suffered from being set, as you say, like a play on film. The maid's report at the end in particular would have been much more compelling as a visual spectacle but instead we got a rather lacklustre verbal account of what happened.
share