Skip to content
The English – or Dances With Blunt – centres around what feels like endless lamenting, Lady Cornelia Locke (Emily Blunt) narrates about how, without her one and only – a Pawnee man named Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer) – she’d “have been killed at the start“, and how “It was in the stars” that they met, and “I cherish you“.
It ain’t all sunshine and rainbows, though, as her child was murdered, before the plot goes back 13 years earlier to 1890. Part of the plot takes place in the newly created territory of Oklahoma, which we’re told is formerly Indian territory, where the US Cavalry has captured and killed a native Indian named Running Hawk, while elsewhere in High Plains, Kansas, Cornelia comes to town and counters a nasty piece of work in Watts (Ciaran Hinds).
Eli’s about to be taken away to the police by Toby Jones, as Sebold Cusk (who makes up these names?), on his horse, on the grounds of murder, with Toby’s accent being of indeterminate American origin.
What starts off as a bit on the dull side, sees The English descending into being very arty-farty with slow motion shots, lots of mumbling, and not a lot of a sense of direction for the plot. Plus, too much of this is in the dark, so you can barely see what’s going on.
There was a good line from Eli, where Cornelia was about to take flight with him, but couldn’t take everything she needed, so he replies, “The difference between what you need and what you want, is what you can put on a horse”.
However, when they form this unlikely alliance – and no doubt will set off an adeventures that will last 13 years until the programme meets the point where it starts, in future episodes – it still comes across as a complete waste of everyone’s time.
Maybe in future episodes it improves, but only one was available initially, and it really does not inspire me to mosey on down this plain again.
The English begins tomorrow night on BBC2 at 9pm, and will be available to watch after broadcast on the BBC iPlayer. From Friday in the US, it will also be on Amazon Prime Video.
You can pre-order The English on Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release on December 19th.
Director: Hugo Blick
Producer: Colin Wratten
Writer: Hugo Blick
Music: Federico Jusid
Cast:
Cornelia Locke: Emily Blunt
Eli Whipp: Chaske Spencer
Trooper Scott: Sam Alexander
Dutch Van de Lote: Ben Temple
Touching Ground: Tonantzin Carmelo
Cam McEwan: Jimmy Shaw
Captain Grann: Edward Crook
Young White Moon: Corey Bird
Richard M Watts: Ciaran Hinds
Simon: Benjamin Victor
Drew: Jon Bermudez
Sebold Cusk: Toby Jones
Lead Horseman: Cokey Falkow
Thomas Trafford: Tom Hughes
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.