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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
9
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
The IndependentMar 28, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Claire Foy and Paul Bettany play the warring spouses. They are both exceptional, and while the case has fewer moving parts than the Thorpe affair, less political machination, the result is just as compelling. ... We have a candidate for the most stylish drama of the year. One of the saddest, too.
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Apr 21, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Ms. Foy keeps one entranced and is abetted by the work of the series’ makeup artists (the designer was Catherine Scoble; the supervisor was Suzi Long) and costume designer Ian Fulcher. ... Mr. Bettany, who’s a little young for the term “beloved,” is an extremely likable actor, but he’s also good at being morally dubious. He makes the allegedly high-born Ian convincingly dissolute, insouciant and seedy.
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Apr 22, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Scandal ultimately rushes through the true scandal of the union's ugly dissolution, in which Margaret was essentially put on trial for being a woman who enjoyed sex. ... Still, Foy and Bettany make for a brilliantly broken couple, so let this Scandal deliver your Brit fix before The Crown returns this fall.
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Apr 18, 2022
Season 1 Review:
Over the three-episode trajectory, Foy and Bettany are at the top of their games with emotional performances that will undoubtedly garner attention come awards season. Their driving takes, along with the beautiful cinematography and world-building that went into the period piece are indeed the main reasons to watch. ... However, if the point is to remind viewers of the people and motives at the heart of this story, there’s a failed opportunity to expand the characters beyond previously spilled ink.
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Apr 25, 2022
Season 1 Review:
[Bettany's] depiction of Ian's cruel frigidity is a match by Foy's sharpness, as she trades the distant stateliness she brought to "The Crown" for fumes of aristocratic entitlement. Together they duel with a restrained sadism that prevents the story from whirling into melodrama, even when his temper explodes. ... "A Very British Scandal" exists to illustrate the double standard society applies to men and women in measuring individual culpability, although the Argylls' tenacious rancor submerges that point too often.
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Apr 21, 2022
Season 1 Review:
As the violent, manipulative alcoholic and the vain, snobbish fabricator punch and counterpunch in “A Very British Scandal,” the opaqueness of the characters gets tedious and increasingly mystifying. ... Bettany, playing the more shallowly drawn of the two, fares better. He is thoroughly convincing as a smooth-talking, sociopathic cad. ... Foy gives it a valiant try — it’s hard to imagine a more expert performance in the role. But she’s trying to make sense of a cipher.
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The PlaylistApr 18, 2022
The TelegraphMar 28, 2022
Season 1 Review:
There isn’t a single sympathetic note. ... It is effective as an invitation to gawp at the upper classes, and reassure ourselves that we are better than them. And it looks beautiful – the costumes, the make-up, the interiors. The high production values and the quality cast give the impression of a premium product. But the period tropes are lazy.
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