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Silent Witness: Bad Love: Part 2 (2021)
Good episode, not so sure about the new pathologist
This was a clever episode, the way it kept you guessing till the end, with a quite unexpected ending. The new pathologist doesn't excite me so far, but perhaps with time his acting will improve and the character grow on me, as Clarissa did.
I don't understand why they have two pathologists working at scenes or doing post mortems together. Surely this is non-standard practice and would confuse things? It seems like just an artificial way of working the new pathologist into the story.
Am I imagining it, or is there a growing sexual tension between Nikki and Jack? I find it just incredible that she hasn't got a boyfriend or husband, and Jack seems to have a thing for her.
Incidentally I love Nikki's clothes, and she wears them so well. I really like feminine pretty clothes like that.
Soupçons (2004)
Couldn't finish even the first episode
From the start when I saw the amount of blood on the stairs I thought "Whoa, that can't be from a fall?" Then I heard Peterson's voice in the 911 call, and he did sound genuinely heartbroken. So I thought maybe there was more to it, and I was sucked in by the hype about how great this show was supposed to be. But I had made the mistake of thinking this documentary would be unbiased.
When I saw that it was just going to focus on the defence team, and their convoluted attempts to twist the evidence to prove he was innocent, I gave it away. Seeing the severe lacerations on the poor woman's head made it obvious that she'd been beaten before she went down the stairs. And yet the defence medico said that if he looked at the photos long enough he could change his mind.
It seems in America, experts can be hired to tailor their supposedly professional opinions to suit whoever's paying them if the price is right. That is the real disgrace of an episode like this, not of some poor innocent schmuck being sent to jail.
Give me Forensic Files any day over this.
Madeleine Collins (2021)
What was the point of this film?
This film tries to be a cross between a psychological thriller and a character study. Unfortunately I think it falls short on both.
Spoiler alert
It starts with an intriguing scenario of a young blonde woman shopping for clothes, who faints and hits her head in the dressing room. After ministrations from the shop staff, she goes off and... off camera there are screams, and we assume she has met her demise. It is not explained what has happened, although there is mention of her face being "all bloody". My first thought was that she'd committed suicide by jumping over a railing, but then when nothing further was revealed I presumed that her hitting her head had brought on a delayed brain hemorrhage. It would be nice to have had it made clear. It never was explained exactly how she died, even at the end of the film.
The next scene shows a similar looking woman who is apparently not the same person, with no explanation given for the segue. So that bizarre segue hangs over the film, until it is explained near the end.
These sorts of unexplained segues can be intriguing in surrealist style movies, or in thrillers where they give you some glimmer of a clue to a connection between the two disjointed scenes, but in this case it was annoying that there were no hints at all for this one.
After this, we are plunged into scenes with the second blonde woman (Virginie Efira), who we gradually learn is Judith in one environment, and Margot in another.
"Judith" is apparently leading a double life with two different partners, and it's not clear why. This sort of thing is far more common with men than with women, so it's puzzling. Also, little clues are dropped that each partner know something about the other, which is even more puzzling.
I found the drip feed of clues rather frustrating. It didn't engage me with curiosity like a true thriller would, and yet I didn't feel enough empathy with the main character to enjoy it as a character study, as her motivations weren't clear. In fact, I found Judith rather irritating as she seemed to be a compulsive liar and fantasist.
All is revealed at the end, but the denouement did not seem to warrant the degree of mystery and intrigue leading up to it. I found myself feeling rather deflated and wondering what the point of this film was at the end.
There was also a rather strange and seemingly irrelevant set of scenes with a foreigner who forges her ID card, and who has become infatuated with her. My hackles went up at the danger inherent in this man's interest in her, and in her slightly leading him on, a risk I think it was very unwise for her to take.
I was also puzzled by the behaviour of the little girl at the end, when she rejected Judith/Margot as her mother. Yet earlier in the film there had been multiple loving seconds between the two and the girl had cried out for her, calling her "mother" when she went away. If the change was to be explained by Abdel telling the child the true identity of her mother just before Judith took her, then why did Judith subsequently tell Abdel "She knew all along who her mother was"? That didn't make sense, as the girl was only a baby when her mother died.
And finally, the name of the film, "Madeleine Collins", is not referenced till right at the end of the movie. By then it seemed somewhat superfluous.
So I am left wondering what the intentions of the writer and director were with this film? If it was meant to be a psychological thriller constructed around the idea of deceiving loved ones, the excellent "Un Homme Idéal" is an example of how to do this in a far more gripping way, without confusing segues and drip feeding of clues.
If it was meant to be a character study based on the impact of deceit in relationships, the recent "Adieu Monsieur Haffmann" was a master class in how this is done in a far more powerful and engaging way.
Dating Around (2019)
Boring
I don't like the format of this show, where they just focus on one person dating lots of others. It makes it seem fake and hard to root for anyone in particular. I feel sorry for the dates who have to try so hard to compete with each other. It feels like a meat market. But what makes it really boring is that we never get any feedback on what the characters are thinking. In First Date we get regular checkins to know their thoughts, which is the really interesting part.
You are left puzzled at the end as to why the protagonist chose the one they did. Admittedly I only watched two episodes. That was enough for me as it was too much of a yawnfest.
El Clan (2015)
Horrible
I am flummoxed as to why people liked this film. I found it sickening and alienating. The upbeat music seemed totally inappropriate for the horrifying scenes unfolding before us and trivialised what was real suffering, violence and death that happened to real people. And I was particularly revolted by the juxtaposition of a sex scene interleaved with a violent kidnapping, overlaid with frantic music.
The movie was confusing, too. I had hoped to be given some context of the political scene in Argentina in which this crime arose, but we were plunged right into the thick of things via a series of flashbacks and disconnected scenes which we were expected to piece together (while madly reading subtitles, for those of us who don't speak Spanish). Only near the end do we discover, casually, that Puccio was connected to the Intelligence services, and his history with them is never fully explained.
I felt relieved when the movie drew to a close and the perpetrators were caught. It was at this point that Puccio revealed his truly revolting narcissism and manipulativeness. I had felt repelled by him throughout, but by the end I just felt glad to be shot of him and his whole morally dubious family.