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Pure brings us Marnie (Charly Clive), and while a lot of us have some form of OCD, for the leading lady, she’s suffers from the form known as ‘Pure O’.
While the rituals involved take over her life at times, her obsessions manifest themselves in the form of deep sexual thoughts, to the point where if the orgy in her head actually went on in real life, it would get you catapulted into the local loony bin and as Marnie says, “It’s like The Sixth Sense, but I don’t see dead people… I see naked people”, and include thoughts about what she’d do with Lorraine Kelly and where she’d put the TV presenter’s pointy shoes.
This is based on Rose Cartwright’s memoir about her own condition, which led to her considering committing suicide. Thankfully, she didn’t, and and we join Marnie just a shade over 10 years since this began and her life is at a crossroads, both metaphorically and literally, as a coach is ready to take her out of her Scottish Borders hometown and down to London.
Is she gay? Straight? Bisexual? She doesn’t know herself, and it doesn’t help when these thoughts continue to race through her head.
Based on the first episode alone so far, if you take away the OCD thoughts she has in her head, this comes across as any drama about a woman trying to find herself, and not a lot different from what we’ve seen before. It’s okay, but… nothing more than that.
I will check out some more episodes, though, and see if it improves, and add more comments then. If you do enjoy the opener, then you’ll be pleased to learn that the entire series is subsequently available online at the link below, although it will also be shown weekly.
UPDATE: Episode 2 wasn’t any better, although it wasn’t any different so for hwoever you thought about episode 1, you’ll think pretty similar to episode 2.
Pure starts tomorrow on Channel 4 at 10pm, and isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but any episodes broadcast can be seen on All4.
Episode 1: 5/10
Episode 2: 4/10
Series Directors: Aneil Karia, Alicia MacDonald
Producer: Jen Kenwood
Writer: Kirstie Swain
Cast:
Marnie: Charly Clive
Amber: Niamh Algar
Charlie: Joe Cole
Shereen: Kiran Sonia Sawar
Ingrid: Arabella Weir
Joe: Anthony Welsh
Sarah: Doon Mackichan
Sef: Jing Lusi
Libby: Tori Allen-Martin
Nancy: Eleanor Fanyinka
Angus: Matthew Cottle
Sam: Samuel Edward-Cook
Helen: Olive Gray
Connie: Justine Mitchell
Jules: Natalia Kostrzewa
Benji: Jacob Collins-Levy
Shula: Munirih Grace
Justin: Matthew Jacobs Morgan
Kush: Alexander Nair
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.