MovieChat Forums > The Honourable Woman (2014) Discussion > Cut the Maggie G stuff and you'd have a ...

Cut the Maggie G stuff and you'd have a fast-paced spy show.

posted 10 years ago by Brock-11
9 replies | jump to latest

Going by the first two eps, it would be better if Nessa should be a minor character with quick scenes.

But Nessa is what makes it so different and great.

Without her it would be a terrible clichéd spy-show.

[–] YevKassem 9 years ago

But they didn't want Hollywood-spy. They wanted a more realistic down to earth spy and that can't be fast paced.

I'm sure Alias is on somewhere. Go watch that.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] bendipa 9 years ago

Kind of missing the point. She had been traumatised both by her experiences in Gaza and witnessing her father's murder. And those events came back to haunt her time and again.

[–] movie80 9 years ago

Also got impatient with her staring into space and talking as if she were stoned.

Blame the director. She usually isn't this s l o w.

I agree with this post.

[–] Waldimore 9 years ago

I liked the pacing. Every series can't be 24, Homeland, or a James Bond film.

I liked how they had almost a film noir kind of feeling, with the emphasis on the intrigue and its intricacies. Does anyone believe that espionage in real life is like an episode of 24? And I say that as a huge Jack Bauer fan. But I don't look for every series to be 24.

This series made me think and it absorbed me on a dramatic level. Seeing the personal lives of 2 fictional rich and powerful Israeli characters in the middle of Israeli/Palestine conflict put me in touch the essential conflict on an emotional level. Otherwise, when I watch the news, read the newspaper, it's just politics and I'm detached from it.

This is not to say that I take everything in the show as fact. Of course, not. But it made confront the issues of distrust, anger, and politicization of the problem, as well as the economics.

It was a good show. I loved Maggie G's performance. I thought the cinematography was sensational, the editing. My only critique was often the dialogue was too cryptic. But even so, it was always sensational.

Good show and nice to see a project where a woman is that the center.

[–] tallard 9 years ago

I'm a fairly strong MG fan. I fell asleep at half the first episode. Tried getting back in the next day. But I couldn't. I simply can't get past her horrible speech pattern and accent and demeanour.
All the good reviews are pressing me to try again, but she is just so grating. Maybe it's just that Brits have a certain propensity to portray younger and middle aged women in a sexist way.

***So I've seen 4 movies/wk in theatre for a 1/4 century, call me crazy?**

[–] mmsbk 9 years ago

What DO you mean by that last sentence????

[–] bendipa 9 years ago

Cut the Maggie G stuff and you'd have a fast-paced spy show.

Erm, Nessa was the centre-point character to the whole drama and her 'slow' personality was one reason why she was taken advantage of by her brother.

This wasn't an action-adventure film. It was a spy drama that needed time to breathe. '24', it ain't. I admit the first ep was slow and very confusing to begin with (for me) as they introduced you to the main characters. And it might have put off plenty of those viewers with low attention spans. But as with many dramas you need a bit of patience and effort by the viewer together with some background. Overall It paid off well in the end.