Landscapers

Exhilarating, eccentric and endlessly surprising – Landscapers might have left it late but it’s one of the best dramas of 2021.

If Sinclair’s bold concept and script lift it well above the average crime drama, the direction, by Will Sharpe, is what makes Landscapers unforgettable. ... [Colman and Thewlis] get plenty of screen time, and anchor the more out-there moments in patient, believable characters.

“Landscapers” dares to cast aside expectations and dares the viewer to come along for the ride. It is wonderfully in tune with film’s capacity to make up its own truth.

The result is rich, thought-provoking art that makes Susan and Christopher strangely sympathetic, as they blend the lines of fantasy in order to keep the truth—whatever it might be—deeply buried.

In "Landscapers," Sharpe and his fellow-creator, Ed Sinclair, who wrote the script, fully integrate the breaking of the fourth wall into their haunting study of marriage, victimhood, and role-play.

Olivia Coleman continues to astonish with her emotional range in a peak performance of deep pathos as the childlike and chipper Susan. [6 - 19 Dec 2021, p.8]

Rather than trying to right a wrong or exploit a painful story for passive entertainment (as so many true crime series do), HBO’s four-part romance lets the mystery be while honoring the possibility that these two people did what they did out of love.

Mostly it’s a showcase for Colman, for that endlessly expressive face and her perfect line readings, for the humanity she draws on so easily. Watch it and marvel.

Landscapers isn’t a twisty, suspenseful true crime caper, but isn’t that tired and overdone? Maybe a prestige cast, gorgeous filmmaking and an intricate style of storytelling is exactly what this genre needs to be brought back to life.

Landscapers is an odd cove. It is artfully directed by Will Sharpe, and for the most part beautifully acted, as you would expect when the lead characters are played by Olivia Colman and David Thewlis. But tonally? Well, slightly “off”, didn’t you think? A tad discomfiting? ... As a viewer, I very much enjoyed it, but if I was related to Patricia and William Wycherley, I would be furious.

Landscapers not only benefits from great performances by Colman and Thewlis, but it’s a dark comedy that’s actually howlingly funny in between all of the darkness. That balance is very difficult to achieve.

The stylized sequences ultimately put a distance between us and them, a couple whose lives are as low key as the experimentation is bold. That makes it all the more notable that Colman and Thewlis register so strongly and memorably. Despite the many interruptions, they deliver.

At times, the trickery and the cinematic flourishes can be a bit much, and we find ourselves pining for the “real” story so we can learn what actually happened on that fateful night. Always, though, Thewlis and Colman are amazing.

[The script] doesn’t match the inventiveness of the direction, and it’s also more murky (and sentimental) than it needs to be about Susan’s true nature, which slightly dampens Colman’s performance. ... The script does much better by Chris, though, and “Landscapers” is a showcase for Thewlis, with his angular frame and his distinctive style of commanding awkwardness.

All of this is more cerebrally interesting than it is moment-to-moment gripping. Colman’s fleeting moments of being able to see herself, and the longer stretches of denial, are wonderful to watch, as is the work being done in counterpoint by Thewlis. But the legal-investigation plotline lags (despite strong work from supporting players including Kate O’Flynn and ​​Dipo Ola). ... “Landscapers” is worth sampling.

With the facts elusive, it’s left to stars Olivia Colman and David Thewlis to maintain a level of emotional truth through what otherwise feels like a collection of amusing narrative experiments. ... Suggests a 50-something British Badlands. Just know that if you’re going to watch, you should invest more in deciding if that movie analogy is apt than in trying to unravel what happened to the two geezers buried in the backyard.

As much a love story between Susan and Chris as it is a true-crime caper, viewers expecting a straightforward tale may be baffled by what “Landscapers” delivers, which is sometimes interesting and different, other times overwrought and pretentious.

While “Landscapers” suffers from one too many cinematic allusions, one too many efforts of fitting the true-crime landscape on this singular oddball case (each episode ends with real television news footage reporting on the trial), it’s the rare love shared by these two folks that really binds the whole narrative together.

Colman’s portrayal of Susan and the woman’s quietly stomach-churning volatility is strongest when we aren’t in the realm of fantasy. Otherwise, the show’s cinematic spectacle has a way of dimming the emotional details of Susan and Christopher’s life leading up to their crime.

The actors cut through the clutter, even if “Landscapers” can’t quite pull off its intended swings from ironic-comic referencing to Susan’s anguished revelations of her childhood.

The blueprint for Landscapers, a four-part British miniseries airing on HBO, turns out to be considerably sturdier than the construction, somewhat wasting the dream pairing of Olivia Colman and David Thewlis. It's still an interesting detour into bizarre true crime, but so stylized as to blunt the overall impact by being too cute for its own good.

In a series teeming with characters, Susan and Christopher are the only people who feel flesh and blood. The drama is at its strongest during their interactions, which is predominantly when we’re given respite from the circus unfolding around them and are able to fully access this narrative.