The Yellow Bird Swedish series of Wallander is my favourite television - particularly the first series featuring the wonderful Johanna Salstrom and the splendid Ola Rapace. I did not expect too much from Young Wallander but I was surprised how unsatisfying it is...
The 'real' Wallander is character based and ponderous, it has scenes of gravitas and raw emotion.
Young Wallander possesses the gravitas of an extended pop video and it fails in so many ways - its music, it obsessive close ups, unbelievable dialogue, obvious narrative and the fact that it bears absolutely no resemblance to Mankell's writing. The decision to cast English actors and have the dialogue in English has been heavily criticised but this seems the least of its failings to me.
My greatest dislike is casting Adam Pålsson as Kurt Wallander. He is as convincing as the least talented singer in a Nordic boy band... his fey, girlish persona would indeed be more suited to a pop video where he could strut about looking pretty rather than doing that here.
Rather than ride on the successful brand of Wallander, why didn't they call this series something more suited to its content... something that suggests the protagonist is more concerned about messing up his hair than solving crime. This is watchable... but not good and ultimately not very pleasing. There is never any sense of a bigger world just an immature then this happened and then this happened approach... all accompanied by music that suggests a tension that is never there.
It's fluff - poor television with all of the usual ingredients but nothing to make you care about any of it.
The 'real' Wallander is character based and ponderous, it has scenes of gravitas and raw emotion.
Young Wallander possesses the gravitas of an extended pop video and it fails in so many ways - its music, it obsessive close ups, unbelievable dialogue, obvious narrative and the fact that it bears absolutely no resemblance to Mankell's writing. The decision to cast English actors and have the dialogue in English has been heavily criticised but this seems the least of its failings to me.
My greatest dislike is casting Adam Pålsson as Kurt Wallander. He is as convincing as the least talented singer in a Nordic boy band... his fey, girlish persona would indeed be more suited to a pop video where he could strut about looking pretty rather than doing that here.
Rather than ride on the successful brand of Wallander, why didn't they call this series something more suited to its content... something that suggests the protagonist is more concerned about messing up his hair than solving crime. This is watchable... but not good and ultimately not very pleasing. There is never any sense of a bigger world just an immature then this happened and then this happened approach... all accompanied by music that suggests a tension that is never there.
It's fluff - poor television with all of the usual ingredients but nothing to make you care about any of it.