television

What To Do When Someone Dies or Without You (2012) is a television adaptation by ITV of the novel by Nicci French. This is the name adopted by the husband and wife writing team, Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, with the book appearing under the first title in 2008. Quite why it was renamed for television baffles me. As to the story, Ellie Manning (Anna Friel) is naturally devastated when two police officers come to her door and announce the death of her husband in a car accident. What make this all the more difficult to bear is the second piece of news that Greg Manning (Marc Warren) was not alone in the car when it went off the road, down the slope and caught fire. As an accountant, her husband obviously had many female clients, but was he really having an affair with Milena Livingstone (Heidi Monsen)? Ellie meets the husband of the dead woman at the inquest, but at that time and subsequently, Hugo Livingstone (Tim Woodward) is less than forthcoming.

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Despite the lack of enthusiasm from her friends, Ellie sets out to investigate her husband. Joe Lipton (Barnaby Kay) the owner of the accounting firm and the best man at Greg’s wedding, gives details of Greg’s diary. She has all his credit card receipts. But there’s nothing to even hint at an affair. Even the one suspicious email to another woman proves no likelihood of unfaithfulness. That means she must start looking into the life of the other victim.

Grief is a terrible emotion and it drives people in unpredictable ways. I find Ellie’s scepticism of the implication her husband was having an affair to be credible. If he never drove without his seatbelt on and was very safety conscious as a driver, the accident as described does not look that convincing. Yet we are asked to accept she would become obsessional about investigating the accident. I’m less convinced about this. Indeed, we’re given every indication she’s gone completely crackers because, throughout the three episodes, she spends quite long periods of time talking to her dead husband. As an actor, Marc Warren gets the second largest amount of time on screen. This willingness to adjust her view of reality to include her husband as a helpful and supportive “ghost” does not win her the reliable narrator of the year award.

However, since this type of story has to follow a predictable path, Dead Greg looks at her accusingly if she thinks he cheated on her and this pushes her into the investigation. We then get into the difficult territory of a lone woman of dubious sanity trying to find evidence of possible foul play. The way she bluffs her way into the confidence of Milena’s business associate, Frances Shaw (Pippa Haywood), is unconvincing. Even though Frances and David Shaw (Clive Wood) are going through a marital crisis and are watching their business go down the tubes, I don’t believe she would have given Ellie free run of the place, particularly after the gaff over Milena’s son, Jake. David only raises an eyebrow when she trawls through confidential files but refuses to produce a National Insurance number. But, this is the only way she can worm confidences out of these people, so all we can do is watch in embarrassment. After a lot of hit and miss, Ellie works out the password to Milena’s email account. Much good does that do her. As to whether she should have slept with the oleaginous cook. . . I suppose she was caught off balance because her “friends” finally produced some evidence that her husband had been unfaithful (I wonder where that document came from). You could see Greg huffing and puffing out of the corner of Ellie’s eye with that butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth look, but she was in a snit and it was her way of paying him back for betraying her — post mortem trust issues surfacing. And just when it all looked as though this shock of sex had pumped out the bilges of the sinking ship, a second body turned up in a bath — preferred because it keeps them clean and ready for the coroner.

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As to the friends, apart from Gwen (Olivia Poulet) I found it difficult to sort out who was who. Because this is told from Ellie’s point of view and, despite being crackers, she knows who everyone is, there seems to be a lack of establishing background material. Or perhaps I’m just rather poor at putting names to faces I only see for a few seconds every episode. Whatever the reason, I came into the final episode decidedly wooly as to who everyone was.

Anyway, we now come to the exciting conclusion. With the body in the bath as his starting point, the detective immediately begins to investigate whether Ellie killed all three victims. Obviously, like all the other figures who have lurched into view, he considers her likely to be insane and therefore capable of anything. The only ray of light comes from Hugo who produces an interesting email. This leads to an old lady and a possible motive for her husband’s death. Except Ellie also remembers that Frances Shaw had a “secret” lover and makes a speculative leap. The ending is then just completely absurd. It’s rare for me to be quite so disgusted at the way a story is wrapped up but this wins a prize. I will not spoil it. I will simply leave it that everyone should come to the full horror of it with an open mind — only joking. You should be standing by with something to throw in the general direction of the screen as a symbolic gesture of contempt. Breaking the screen would be bad karma and means you would miss the next watchable show.

I’m glad the cat was OK. It had the good sense to hide until the horror was over.

Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHAT