The Casual Vacancy, episode 2
Feb. 23rd, 2015 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which Sarah Phelps, the scriptwriter doing the adaption, confuses me with one particular choice while the rest mostly work for me, and so do the actors with one arguable exception.
Because the first episode ended on the first "Ghost of Barry Fairbrother" posting without revealing who the poster was, I was wondering last week whether the show would make this into a mystery when it just isn't one in the novel, but this week's episode soon makes it clear that the "Ghost" postings are hailing from various people, first Andrew and then Stuart aka Fats. What confuses me is that we still haven't gotten a line from the teenager as important as Andrew, Stuart and Crystal in the novel, to wit, Sukhvinder. Unless we count the show's version of the "Last Time..." voiceover right at the start, which was a young female teenager who wasn't Krystal speaking. There's also one scene in which like in the last episode you see Parminder saying something harsh to her daughter, so presumably Spoilery Stuff will still happen. But. Not only is Sukhvinder the pov we leave the novel with, the way she gets bullied mercilessly by Stuart/Fats and sometimes even by Krystal is a major plot and characterisation point. It makes it clear Stuart isn't just being a pretentious dissaffected teenager but can be spectacularly cruel. (Back when I read the book, I also thought it was good to get an example of bullying at school that wasn't the American high school jock cliché, because Fats/Stuart isn't a jock, he's the guy who fancies himself a rebellious intellectual.) Also that Krystal, for all that she's a tremendously sympathetic character and her storyline is in many ways the heart of the novel, isn't a saint; she's also prone to thoughtlessly lashing out at perceived weaker people, especially when the pressure at home is unbearable. And Sukhvinder, in turn... well, that's spoilery. I get that the voluminous novel had to be trimmed in order to be done as a three parter, but the Sukhvinder's storyline really really ISN'T the one I'd have chosen for trimming.
(On the other hand, I'm totally good with Kay's affair with the vainglorious lawyer being cut. THAT is one of the subplots that you can remove without touching the core themes.)
Other differences that struck me in this second installment: maybe it's the acting, maybe it's the script, but in the tv version, Howard and Shirley as a couple come across with Shirley, not Howard, dominant, whereas in the book it's the reverse. They're both villainous in either version, but in the book, Howard is basically the kingpin of the town not just by virtue of money but also charisma, understanding of power and wheeling people in. Gambon doesn't really do that. And if you have Shirley already dominant, then I wonder whether the pay off at the end re: Howard and Shirley will be changed? Anyway, Julia McKenzie's Shirley is a boo-hiss villain of the best type, grandmotherly manners united with constant put downs and honing in on vulnerabilities. We also seem to be heading towards a Shirley versus Samantha showdown. Keeley Hawes' Samantha continues to be tremendously entertaining and keeps getting some of the best lines. The dinner from hell is pretty much as in the book, though because Howard is more of a presence in the novel, I found Parminder's counter attack to his spouting all the usual "drug addicts have only themselves to blame, why don't they just pull themselves together and instead burden society, programs are a waste of money" clichés giving me an even greater satisfcation. Though it was done well, with the actress playing Parminder as landing her blows with a quiet, not a loud anger, though it was clear she was goaded by Howard.
Incidentally, I remember having a discussion with I thinklikeadeuce about this scene, because she saw it as both Parminder and JKR fatshaming. The reason why I don't think that: a) Howard isn't the only overweight character in the novel, though he's the heaviest. Tessa - and the tv version kept this, thankfully - is the Rubens type, and she's sympathetic. b) Parminder's speech is in direct reply to Howard's attack on drug addicts as people without self control who make the state pay for their bad choices by pointing out his hypocrisy: he eats far too much despite knowing that this endangers his health and refuses to change this habit, but expects the state to pay for his treatment, i.e. the consequences. (Both book and tv series prepare for this with the earlier scene where Howard, who as opposed to the inhabitants from The Fields could pay for a private doctor, makes Parminder treat him as part of the National Health Service as a power play and because he knows how she loathes him.)
Speaking of drug addicts, showing Terri Weedon going from fixated on the next hit that won't come (because Krystal got rid of the stolen goods) and incapable of thinking/feeling anything else to, after being off the heroin for a few days, slowly reemerging as someone capable of mother-daughter interaction made the scene between her and Krystal where they eat together amazingly poignant. (Especially if you know what's to come.) I know that JKR's second husband worked at a drug clinic; Terri's portrayal in The Casual Vacancy always struck me as a harrowingly realistic example of what drug addicts without any money are like.
And then there's the flashback with Krystal and Barry. I thinktorn_eledwhen is right, the adaption cut out Krystal as a part of the rowing team Barry coached, but this scene makes the important point of that backstory part - Barry encouraged Krystal and gave her a future which after his death she no longer has. Somewhere I've read the young acrtress who plays Krystal never did a screenrole before. She's amazing.
The Krystal/Stuart pairing of teenage dissaffection; something I thought the tv version didn't get across is that Fats, who sees slumming it with the girl from The Fields as this grand gesture of rebellion and "authenticity", gets seriously discomforted aft first when he's in her house because that's a bit too real for him andn not the "cool" type of poverty at all. (And then he's able to block it out again.) Otoh both his earlier scene with Tessa and Krystal's later scene with a temporarily un-drugged Terri are satisfyingly arch about Stuart/Fats.
A pleasant surprise is how the black comedy moments work: Samantha is a queen with this, pointing out to her daughters that she can turn up the embarrassing mother act up to eleven, her reply to Parminder's husband Vikram as to why he got invited to the Dinner of Doom along with all the council members (that while everyone else will be discussing socially relevant thinks, "you and I are going to drink and make inappropriate jokes"), the first part of Colin and Tessa reacting to the news that Stuart ejaculated all over Kierkegard.
Lastly: the name Lolita Chakrabarti who playes Parminder sounded familiar, so I googled and lo, she is indeed the talented writer who wrote Red Velvet, the play about Ira Aldridge I saw last year in London, starring her husband, the gorgeous Adrian Lester.
Because the first episode ended on the first "Ghost of Barry Fairbrother" posting without revealing who the poster was, I was wondering last week whether the show would make this into a mystery when it just isn't one in the novel, but this week's episode soon makes it clear that the "Ghost" postings are hailing from various people, first Andrew and then Stuart aka Fats. What confuses me is that we still haven't gotten a line from the teenager as important as Andrew, Stuart and Crystal in the novel, to wit, Sukhvinder. Unless we count the show's version of the "Last Time..." voiceover right at the start, which was a young female teenager who wasn't Krystal speaking. There's also one scene in which like in the last episode you see Parminder saying something harsh to her daughter, so presumably Spoilery Stuff will still happen. But. Not only is Sukhvinder the pov we leave the novel with, the way she gets bullied mercilessly by Stuart/Fats and sometimes even by Krystal is a major plot and characterisation point. It makes it clear Stuart isn't just being a pretentious dissaffected teenager but can be spectacularly cruel. (Back when I read the book, I also thought it was good to get an example of bullying at school that wasn't the American high school jock cliché, because Fats/Stuart isn't a jock, he's the guy who fancies himself a rebellious intellectual.) Also that Krystal, for all that she's a tremendously sympathetic character and her storyline is in many ways the heart of the novel, isn't a saint; she's also prone to thoughtlessly lashing out at perceived weaker people, especially when the pressure at home is unbearable. And Sukhvinder, in turn... well, that's spoilery. I get that the voluminous novel had to be trimmed in order to be done as a three parter, but the Sukhvinder's storyline really really ISN'T the one I'd have chosen for trimming.
(On the other hand, I'm totally good with Kay's affair with the vainglorious lawyer being cut. THAT is one of the subplots that you can remove without touching the core themes.)
Other differences that struck me in this second installment: maybe it's the acting, maybe it's the script, but in the tv version, Howard and Shirley as a couple come across with Shirley, not Howard, dominant, whereas in the book it's the reverse. They're both villainous in either version, but in the book, Howard is basically the kingpin of the town not just by virtue of money but also charisma, understanding of power and wheeling people in. Gambon doesn't really do that. And if you have Shirley already dominant, then I wonder whether the pay off at the end re: Howard and Shirley will be changed? Anyway, Julia McKenzie's Shirley is a boo-hiss villain of the best type, grandmotherly manners united with constant put downs and honing in on vulnerabilities. We also seem to be heading towards a Shirley versus Samantha showdown. Keeley Hawes' Samantha continues to be tremendously entertaining and keeps getting some of the best lines. The dinner from hell is pretty much as in the book, though because Howard is more of a presence in the novel, I found Parminder's counter attack to his spouting all the usual "drug addicts have only themselves to blame, why don't they just pull themselves together and instead burden society, programs are a waste of money" clichés giving me an even greater satisfcation. Though it was done well, with the actress playing Parminder as landing her blows with a quiet, not a loud anger, though it was clear she was goaded by Howard.
Incidentally, I remember having a discussion with I think
likeadeuce about this scene, because she saw it as both Parminder and JKR fatshaming. The reason why I don't think that: a) Howard isn't the only overweight character in the novel, though he's the heaviest. Tessa - and the tv version kept this, thankfully - is the Rubens type, and she's sympathetic. b) Parminder's speech is in direct reply to Howard's attack on drug addicts as people without self control who make the state pay for their bad choices by pointing out his hypocrisy: he eats far too much despite knowing that this endangers his health and refuses to change this habit, but expects the state to pay for his treatment, i.e. the consequences. (Both book and tv series prepare for this with the earlier scene where Howard, who as opposed to the inhabitants from The Fields could pay for a private doctor, makes Parminder treat him as part of the National Health Service as a power play and because he knows how she loathes him.)Speaking of drug addicts, showing Terri Weedon going from fixated on the next hit that won't come (because Krystal got rid of the stolen goods) and incapable of thinking/feeling anything else to, after being off the heroin for a few days, slowly reemerging as someone capable of mother-daughter interaction made the scene between her and Krystal where they eat together amazingly poignant. (Especially if you know what's to come.) I know that JKR's second husband worked at a drug clinic; Terri's portrayal in The Casual Vacancy always struck me as a harrowingly realistic example of what drug addicts without any money are like.
And then there's the flashback with Krystal and Barry. I think
torn_eledwhen is right, the adaption cut out Krystal as a part of the rowing team Barry coached, but this scene makes the important point of that backstory part - Barry encouraged Krystal and gave her a future which after his death she no longer has. Somewhere I've read the young acrtress who plays Krystal never did a screenrole before. She's amazing. The Krystal/Stuart pairing of teenage dissaffection; something I thought the tv version didn't get across is that Fats, who sees slumming it with the girl from The Fields as this grand gesture of rebellion and "authenticity", gets seriously discomforted aft first when he's in her house because that's a bit too real for him andn not the "cool" type of poverty at all. (And then he's able to block it out again.) Otoh both his earlier scene with Tessa and Krystal's later scene with a temporarily un-drugged Terri are satisfyingly arch about Stuart/Fats.
A pleasant surprise is how the black comedy moments work: Samantha is a queen with this, pointing out to her daughters that she can turn up the embarrassing mother act up to eleven, her reply to Parminder's husband Vikram as to why he got invited to the Dinner of Doom along with all the council members (that while everyone else will be discussing socially relevant thinks, "you and I are going to drink and make inappropriate jokes"), the first part of Colin and Tessa reacting to the news that Stuart ejaculated all over Kierkegard.
Lastly: the name Lolita Chakrabarti who playes Parminder sounded familiar, so I googled and lo, she is indeed the talented writer who wrote Red Velvet, the play about Ira Aldridge I saw last year in London, starring her husband, the gorgeous Adrian Lester.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-23 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-24 05:07 am (UTC)(BTW, the tv version changed Shirley's line re: Parminder's Sari as part of making Shirley more formidable an opponent (I assume). Earlier Vikram, Parminder's husband, whispers to her re: Sari "you're just wearing this to annoy the Mollisons" and she says "no, I'm not". Then they pass the Mollisons and Shirley says "showing your waistline at your age? You're courageous" whereupon Vikram whispers into Parminder's ear "you just got owned by a granny".)
no subject
Date: 2015-02-24 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-24 05:49 am (UTC)What strikes me, with the next two books in mind, is that The Casual Vacancy reads like a spectacularly angry novel, with the anger being of the pent up for years and finally exploding type. Whereas the Robert Galbraith books don't. They do make some social points (naming namees, no less, as in this part of The Silk Worm - " Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, was announcing plans to slash 350 million pounds from the legal aid budget. Strike watched through his haze of tiredness as the florid, paunchy man told Parliament that he wished to 'discourage people from resorting to lawyers whenever they face a problem, and instead encourage them to consider more suitable methods of dispute resolution.' He meant, of course, that poor people ought to relinquish the services of the law"), but more in an occasional observation fashion. They have generally a more relaxed feel. Whereas in The Casual Vacancy, they're the main plot. And the very last line is still one of the most depressing - and angry - ones to a novel since the end of Animal Farm.
Oh, and zomg! "Paunchy" as a description of Kenneth Clarke undermines my case here, though maybe he was the original for Howard Mollison? I should add that Strike, the main character of the mystery novels, does have a bit of a belly himself, after losing a leg in Afghanistan.