Season 31 - The Cazalets (2001-2002)
This family saga taking place during the first few years of World War II is ostensibly about "the ways in which English life changed during the war years, particularly for women" but is really about how awful men are to women. I can't actually believe at one time I viewed this nostalgically as a comfort watch when women are being date raped, having a rape-related pregnancy, having said rape-related baby die, having crucial medical information withheld, and just suffering all the microaggressions women have come to expect on a daily basis. I don't know if I just had my head in the sand the last time I watched this or it was sadly what I, as a woman, just expected. I hadn't been educated enough to see the world around me for what it should be not what it was. Even Hugh Bonneville as the least offensive male Cazalet isn't without sin. Though nothing compares to Stephen Dillane's Edward Cazalet. To put in mildly, his behavior as Stannis Baratheon on Game of Thrones, where he literally takes his daughter Shireen and, you know, burns her alive as a sacrifice for the Lord of Light, is more humane and understandable than his detestable actions as Edward Cazalet. Let me enumerate. Where shall I start? I think I'll start with the least offensive and work my way to the ones that made me so uncomfortable I could barely stand to watch the show. So that means we start with his wife, Villy. Villy, at the age of forty-two has found herself pregnant again. She goes to her doctor and honestly tells him she doesn't think she can handle having another child, to which the doctor says, too bad, Edward will want this child and if you try to do anything stupid I'm coming after you and when is your husband free to play golf? Yes, married women had to normally defer to their husbands in regard to their sexual health, but the fact that the doctor thought he and her husband understood her body more than her just enraged be, especially given the double standard that is about to come up. Because obviously a letch like Edward isn't keeping it in his pants when he's out in the world. First there's a quickly discarded mistress that goes off from whence she came once Anna Chancellor's Diana arrives on the scene. Her and Edward have a yearslong relationship, in fact she has just given birth to Edward's bastard when Villy finds out she's pregnant. But the cherry on the top of the cake, AND the double standard, is when Diana gets pregnant a second time and because of how things stand with her husband she asks Edward to help her get an abortion. Which he is willing to do! Mainly because he's moved on from her with a young girl at the air force base he's stationed at. Though being a controlling and philadering husband isn't the worst of his sins. That would be his feelings towards his daughter, Louise. She's a happy, carefree girl who becomes withdrawn when, after her father takes her out to celebrate her birthday with dinner and a show he sexually assaults her. This won't be the only time. Every time the two of them are in the same scene you feel like he's hunting her. I felt physically ill watching this. It's no wonder the show ends with her marrying an older man, she had to escape. She had to get away from a man whom, as she bluntly said, treats her as his daughter or as his whore as it suits him. I'm queasy just thinking about this. Can we, I don't know, tie Edward up on a nice pyre and light it? We can say it's for the Lord of Light even though it's just for all the women, mothers, wives, daughters, who have been wronged. Who have not been able to do something about it. Let's do it for them.
Every once in awhile you stumble on a miniseries that gives you a new perspective on an actor you love, like Hugh Bonneville's villainous turn in Daniel Deronda which I talked about last week. And every once in awhile you stumble on a miniseries where you fall in love with an actor previously unknown to you. But the rarest of the rare is when both these events happen within the same miniseries, and that's what happened when I first watched The Way We Live Now. Let's tackle a returning favorite first, David Suchet. David Suchet plays the indomitable Augustus Melmotte, a wealthy foreigner taking in interest in British Rail. Everybody knows Suchet as Poirot. I mean it's not just a role, he IS Poirot and I will fight anyone who disagrees. If you've watched any of the interviews or documentaries with him that often air on PBS it's amazing how unlike Poirot he is. He becomes the character created by Agatha Christie. Which is why his completely submerging himself into the roll of Melmotte shouldn't be a surprise, but it is. I mean I even saw him in The Importance of Being Earnest as Lady Bracknell and he was her! But I'd never searched out films or shows with him starring other than Poirot so The Way We Live Now opened my eyes to his range, his professionalism, and how I definitely need more of him in my life, hence my going to see The Importance of Being Earnest. And speaking of someone welcome in my life at ANY time, let's talk Matthew Macfadyen. Matthew Macfadyen plays Sir Felix Carbury, who is wooing Augustus Melmotte's daughter in a vain attempt to right his family's financial problems. Nowadays everyone knows Matthew as Mr. Darcy opposite Keira Knightly. Keep in mind that film was four years away from happening when I first watched The Way We Live Now. So I hunted up everything I could that Matthew starred in, which wasn't much at the time! Even Spooks was a year away! But thankfully there was Enigma, Murder Rooms, Wuthering Heights, the one with him having no lines, and maybe it's best to skip Maybe Baby. I was enamored of this English John Cusack as my friend Jess dubbed him. To this day I will watch him in anything! Though there are a few that I wish I could forget. Looking at you Any Human Heart!
On one level Daniel Deronda is all about the love triangle where there girl I was rooting for gets the guy despite not having the killer wardrobe the other girl does. I mean it, the clothes are top notch! On another level it's about making fun of Jamie Bamber's facial hair. I mean seriously, I can NOT look at him as Hans and not burst out laughing. I just wonder what would have become of Battlestar Galactica had he taken this look with him to that show later the same year. OK, now I can't stop laughing again. I should also stop googling images of him as Hans because this isn't helping things. At all. OK, it's making me happy, so perhaps I should continue. If you want to have a good laugh google "Daniel Deronda Jamie Bamber" and have yourself a gander and a giggle. Curtailing my mirth, most importantly this miniseries is about the acting range of Hugh Bonneville. His turn as Henleigh Grandcourt is nothing short of pure villainy. The first time I watched it I was enraptured by Hugh Bonneville, and yes, I feel obliged to use his full name in this review to not confuse him with the other Hugh in this adaptation, Hugh Dancy, who is also perfectly cast if you were wondering. Hugh Bonneville in recent years has cemented his teddy bear persona with his portrayal of Robert Crawley on Downton Abbey. He's a bit befuddled, but he gets there in the end and is the best dad a girl could hope for. He doubled down on this by helming the Paddington Bear franchise. Prior to Daniel Deronda he was also the teddy bear, the devoted husband in The Cazalets, the oblivious Mr. Rushworth in the version of Mansfield Park I fail to acknowledge, and of course most notably, Bernie, the bumbling friend of Hugh Grant, dammit another HUGH has snuck into this review, in Notting Hill. So Hugh Bonneville is almost always playing to his strengths here, which makes Daniel Deronda so amazing. He is an out and out brute and you don't for one second deny that this is who he is! He became the character and he is the driving force of this miniseries. This isn't Hugh Bonneville anymore, this is Grandcourt! A villain to watch out for and an actor to admire.
