Parade’s End (2012)

nytimes.com

Okay, so this BBC/HBO miniseries bowled me over.  I watched it over five evenings, and each night I went to bed with my eyes welling up in the best possible way.  Throughout my week of viewing, it was never far from my thoughts, and once it ended, I had to fight to impulse to immediately rewatch it, buy the screenplay, and rush to the library for the books it’s based on.

 

The miniseries is based on the Ford Madox Ford tetrad of the same name, condensed into five hours.  Despite the fact that it’s set in England before, during, and after World War I and deals heavily with love and the aristocracy’s swan song, a certain popular British series couldn’t be further from it in tone and quality.  As such, said series will remained unnamed in this review.

 

Our main focus is on the unhappy marriage between Christopher and Sylvia Tietjens.  Their union has never been warm or healthy – the brilliant, stiff Christopher married the vivacious, volatile Sylvia after she became pregnant, and neither of them is entirely sure if the child is his.  However, Sylvia was “forgiven without mercy” for her unfaithfulness, and Christopher has spent the ensuing years being polite and dutiful but cold to her.

 

Sylvia’s attempts to provoke a reaction, any reaction, from Christopher go as far as running away with another man.  While she is “abroad” (the preferred explanatory euphemism,) Christopher meets Valentine, a sweet, intelligent suffragette with whom he feels a near-instant affinity.  They fall into conversation with almost intimate ease, but since it’s only episode 1 and there are five hours to contend with, it can’t be as simple as that.  Christopher is an old-fashioned man with firmly-held values, and he won’t cheat on or divorce his wife, despite her own infidelity.

 

What follows is an epic, complex tale that dances over the lines between love and hate, duty and sacrifice, conviction and foolishness.  We see the quiet beauty of stolen moments in the fog, the arch whispers of drawing-room gossip, and the nerve-shattering chaos of the trenches.  Wars are fought with words and artillery in bedrooms and on battlefields.  The love story is messy and winding, with enough longing to rival Persuasion, Sunday in the Park with George, and In the Mood for Love combined (I’ve had Sunday practically on a loop since I started watching.)

 

It’s a “talkie” of a series, lovingly laced with Tom Stoppard-penned dialogue that is by turns witty, earnest, insightful, and aching.  The lavish production values, coupled with Susanna White’s artful direction, make it a visual feast.  It’s like a sublime fusion of a poem and a painting.  I can’t say enough about Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall as Christopher and Sylvia, and the rest of the cast is populated with splendid performances by fine actors (highlights include Miranda Richardson, Janet McTeer, Roger Allam, and Anne-Marie Duff.)

 

Come back tomorrow for more on Parade’s End, specifically on the main characters and their relationship – one measly review just can’t cover it.

 

Warnings

 

Sexual content, including a few sex scenes and some nudity (although not nearly as much as you’d expect from HBO,) a little swearing, drinking, smoking, and war violence.