Powrót (2022– ) User Reviews

Nice idea but so-so execution

[michalparszuto · 6/10 · 18 January 2024]

It is story of middle-aged guy who is coming back to live after being death for 7 days. It begins like apotheose male middle age crisis but it leads to nowhere.

For sure it could be done better. A Story line is chaotic and is not explaining much. Some twists are just unbelievable or stupid. Thay opened many plots and didn't care about closing all of them in reasonable way for example relation of Jan with Iza. On the fly you can learn that polish business owners suck. The second story of Kostek and Malvina is in momentary cringy. Main character Jan is very well performed but the rest of the staff could be done better. The only learning from the series is that baking is better than selling insurance or something went over my head.

Some series like for e.g. "Russian doll" (both are about looking for live meaning in middle age) is for sure more time effective in terms of problems touched and life philosophy included.

A wasted opportunity

[makowa_panienka · 2/10 · 25 February 2024]

Interesting premise and some very solid performances let down by a lack of cohesion in the script. Admittedly, I have only seen one episode, but I am just not all that interested to keep on.

The protagonist is painted as a loving father, clearly aware that his daughter cares for him too. And yet, on his mysterious "resurrection" he choses to stay in hiding, unnecessarily prolonging the girl's grief. Would a loving parent do such a thing? The authors tried to solve this paradox by making his friend ask him the very question, only for him to dismiss it with a wave of hand.

The wife's indifference to the death of her partner of 17 years is badly exaggerated. The mother's insouciance is equally too dialled up. It is not exactly the problem of hamming it, though. It feels like it was written into the script (ordering that pizza over still warm body) either for the (failed) comedic effect or to hammer every point tirelessly. If the show runners have so little confidence in their audience, it makes one wonder who is their intended audience?

Seeing this middle aged, burned out, husk of a man waking up in bed along couple of attractive women, about half his age, made me look up the creators of the show. Unsurprisingly they turned up to be such middle aged men themselves. Someone should tip off The Alliance of Women Film Journalists about such worthy contender for their Most Egregious Age Difference between Leading Man and Love Interest Award.

It's not all bad, though. As mentioned earlier, the central performances are very competent, especially Bartlomiej Topa, Magdalena Walach and the bright young thing, Zuzanna Mikolajczyk. The last two, despite not being given tons of screen time in this first episode, were able to sketch a convincing pair of opposites. If it wasn't for an unconvincing plot I would be keen to see what these three were up to next.