Page Eight: Season 1

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 6 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 13 Ratings

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7.5

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7.5	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 13 Ratings

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Season Details & Credits

PBS | BBC Two | Season Premiere Date: November 6, 2011

Summary: MI5 agent Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) is left with a secret file that could bring down the government when his boss (Michael Gambon) suddenly dies. He also grows suspicious of his beautiful, young neighbor (Rachel Weisz) who seeks his company.

Genre(s): Drama, Movie/Mini-Series, Action & Adventure

Season 1 Episodes

No episode information is currently available for this season

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

Nancy DeWolf Smith

Nov 4, 2011

[Bill Nighy] is the riveting, breath-stealing, can't-take-your-eyes-off-him center of drama where every actor and every moment is like that, too. Read full review

Ken Tucker

Nov 4, 2011

If you can get past the notion of Nighy being irresistible to every woman he encounters (I almost did), you'll get caught up in the carefully modulated intrigue. Read full review

TV Guide Magazine Matt Roush

Nov 4, 2011

A quietly absorbing elegy for old-school spooks, Page Eight bristles with jazzy intelligence. Read full review

Maureen Ryan

Nov 4, 2011

This small gem of a film manages to be a finely drawn character piece and a searching exploration of what powerful people will (and won't) do to keep their countries safe, and it provides some great actors with meaty roles along the way. Read full review

Alessandra Stanley

Nov 4, 2011

It's the right cast in the right setting but with a wrongfully righteous script. Read full review

Matthew Gilbert

Nov 4, 2011

The movie is so carefully stylized, any and all emotional import has been sucked out of it. Read full review

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7.5

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User Reviews

amirmanraj

Jul 26, 2012

I felt compelled to write a review after reading Alessandra Stanley's mixed review for the New York Times. I can see why some Americans would be offended by this film, but David Hare's script is flawless. Judy Davis and Bill Nighy are amazing.

2 of 2 users found this helpful20

ClariseSamuels

Mar 12, 2015

I was looking forward to seeing this movie mostly because Bill Nighy has charmed me since I saw him in The Boat that Rocked. The movie was a perfect selection for Masterpiece Contemporary, even though a good part of it was devoted to talking heads, although the heads that talked were some ofI was looking forward to seeing this movie mostly because Bill Nighy has charmed me since I saw him in The Boat that Rocked. The movie was a perfect selection for Masterpiece Contemporary, even though a good part of it was devoted to talking heads, although the heads that talked were some of the best in British film and theater. Highly stylized, it was occasionally a thicket of intellectual conversations about art, high government corruption, father-daughter relationships, and more high government corruption.

Fortunately, Bill Nighy is so elegant and understated in the role of Johnny Worricker, he can fascinate you even if he's reciting a list, and Ralph Fiennes is also a master of subtlety, absolutely necessary for a film that is trying to be so subtle that if you blink, you'll miss major exchanges of suppressed emotional fury. Rachel Weisz was miscast as the love interest (she doesn’t really look Palestinian), but although slow-moving, Page Eight is of historical interest because the principal actors are at the height of their rather brilliant careers.

Also, in light of the subsequent two programs that followed, Page Eight can now be seen as an interesting preamble in a trilogy, followed in 2014 by the far more fascinating Part 2 (Turks & Caicos) and Part 3 (Salting the Battlefield), which puts Johnny Worricker front and center as the world’s most complex, hunted, haunted—and mature—spy.

(This review has been reposted.)… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Seasons & Episodes

72

Series Overview
Season 1

72
- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: November 6, 2011
- No episode information is currently available for this season