Us

Gorgeously bittersweet. [7 - 20 Jun 2021, p.7]

Occasionally the middle-class, massive-kitchen-ness of Us can teeter just on the edge of smug, but in the end I was charmed, and as strange as it is to feel nostalgic for such a recent period of time, that nostalgia was felt keenly. The cast are all great, but particularly Hollander and Reeves, who warm up characters that could be cold.

The first episode lags ever so slightly towards the end, once the Petersons are in Paris and Albie runs off to do teenage boy things, leaving his parents alone with each other again. But this is classic Sunday night viewing all the same: funny and touching and acutely observed.

This was an adaptation that didn't embarrass the novel for two reasons -- 1) a good script, written by Nicholls, and 2) Tom Hollander. I am not saying Saskia Reeves and Tom Taylor were not enjoyable as Connie and graceless Kevin-the-teenager son Albie; they were. But it was the infinitely watchable Hollander, with his talent for acerbic, eye-rolling despondency, who was its main energy.

Us remains focused on its people rather than the places, becoming a compelling, challenging character journey that feels truthful—even if it doesn’t really make a solid case for the connection between its leads in the past or present, despite Douglas’ desire to keep the union intact.

There’s nothing surprising or exceptional about “Us,” but it’s a solid, well-acted miniseries that begins with a painful sense of decorum and then breaks into something more raw, and more affecting.