Too Close - The DVDfever Review - Emily Watson

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Too Close is billed as a psychological drama, but based on the first episode, it might be quite a task to focus your mind on the entire episode.

I will mention what happens at the very start because that’s pertinent to what follows, but for anything spoilery, check out the hidden spoiler section later on… which is hidden so you can’t accidentally trip over it.

So, the three-part drama begins with Connie Mortensen (Denise Gough – Paula) driving towards a bridge for which the barrier over the water has come down, until it’s safe to cross again. With two children in the back, she reverses at speed, screeches to a half, and then does the unthinkable… driving off the end, putting the children in hospital, her in psychiatric care and up on an attempted murder charge.

Sent in to assess her is forensic psychiatrist Dr. Emma Robinson (Emily Watson – Chernobyl), and while conversing with Connie – who claims she can’t recall what happened and is clearly a sandwich short of a picnic – must decide if she’s locked up for life, hospitalised for life or set free.

Thus sets the potential for a strong pot-boiler… but it does not fulfil that. I’ll set out the reasons in my spoilery section for episode 1 next.

Spoiler Inside	Select Show
First up, the trope about Connie talking a lot, making assumptions about Emma’s life – yet basically being spot-on each time, starts being interesting, but then just feels like she’s reading out a list of events from the script. Characters copying the perfume of others – first Ness (Thalissa Teixeira – Trigonometry) copying Connie, and then Emma doing likewise), just felt like a ridiculous copy of Single White Female, yet it was the nutter being copied. The forced lesbian relationship with Ness – because it’s 2021 and that needs to be in a storyline even when it doesn’t make sense because Connie claims to be into men – and then gets into even more nonsense at the end when Connie’s husbandy, Karl, and Ness are lovers? WTF?! About the only major takeaway from this opener was seeing mad Connie giggle at the injured children in their hospital beds, which was quite chilling, although that then got a bit OTT when she flipped out and threw the laptop against the wall. They almost had a chance to do something engaging with her character at that point, but then writer/novelist Clara Salaman thought, “Nah, forget ‘psychological’, let’s just go for ‘predictable nutter'”.

Spoiler Inside

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Spoiler-free-wise, I presume this was filmed in late 2020 when things opened up slightly, because in a flashback scene, one character talks about how she works from home, which wasn’t a general thing before last year. Plus, there’s a dinner party which follows the ‘rule of six’ (people, for anyone outside the UK)

UPDATE Episode 2:

Spoiler Inside	Select Show
I’m still not really feeling this. The sex over the phone between Karl and Ness – which Connie stumbled upon by accident, even after they’d agreed to have an open relationship – has been one of a couple of things which have started to tip her over the edge, but no-one sane would flip out to the point where they’d attempt to kill two kids. In fact, the relationship as a whole was about on a par with the nonsense we saw in last week’s Intruder, on Channel 5. The rest of the hour was particularly dull.

Spoiler Inside

Select Show

UPDATE Episode 3:

Spoiler Inside	Select Show
That moment when Connie set fire to her room and managed to escape? Really?! Then again, there’s no security, and the only member of staff the care worker who dishes out the happy pills. They’d be better off hiring Bert & Ernie from Sesame Street! It was pretty harrowing to see how Emma lost her daughter, Abigail, but too much time was taken with Connie’s backstory. We already know she was completely off the chart.

Spoiler Inside

Select Show

Too Close continues on ITV tomorrow night at 9pm, and after broadcast, each episode will be on the ITV Hub, and it can be pre-ordered on DVD, ahead of its release on May 24th.

Too Close – Official Trailer – ITV

Episode 1: 3/10
Episode 2: 1/10
Episode 3: 2/10

Director: Sue Tully
Producer: Letitia Knight
Writer: Clara Salaman (based on her novel)
Music: Jack Halama

Cast:
Dr. Emma Robinson: Emily Watson
Connie Mortensen: Denise Gough
Ness: Thalissa Teixeira
Si Robertson: Risteard Cooper
Karl Mortensen: Jamie Sives
Josh Mortensen: Henry Helm
Annie Mortensen: Isabelle Mullally
Julia de Cadenet: Eileen Davies
Savannah: Grace Calder
Adrian: Alex Hughes
Ahemd: Abe Jarman
Judge: Hiten Patel

Dom Robinson

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.

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Too Close – The DVDfever Review – Emily Watson – ITV drama

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