We finally got around to watching "Save Me", which was an original piece of programming by Sky Atlantic. It was written by and starred Lennie James, who I'd seen before in The Walking Dead TV series. The series was released in February, and all episodes were available to watch immediately, but I think we recorded it as it was shown on Sky Atlantic. We had a load of other stuff to watch as well, and we went on holiday as well, so everyone who can watch it should have had plenty of time by now to see it. And if you have access to Sky Atlantic programming and you haven’t watched it yet, you should. Right now. Stop reading this and go and watch it. Honestly, it's brilliant.
I'm not intending to give any spoilers, but it gets really dark. Lennie James plays a no-hoper, a probable alcoholic who is drifting between three lovers, when he gets a wake-up call. The show is called Save Me, and it's clear what the main reference is to, but it might also refer to Lennie's character, who discovers a sense of purpose as the story develops. There is a bit of a review in the Guardian here, but I wanted to mention a couple of things in addition. Firstly, the cast is amazing. Suranne Jones, Kerry Godliman, and Stephen Graham were all brilliant. And the rest of the group were up to the job as well. It was a depressing setting, the characters seemed to be barely living before the action started.
The main thing that caught my eye though, were the surreal moments that popped up every time there was a panoramic shot of the estate where Nelly (Lennie's character) went about his business. In one shot, there were children on a basketball court in a fully-inflated dinghy, pretending to row. In the background of another scene, there was a clown, in full face make-up, drinking a pint of Guinness. In another scene, people were skating by or performing weird little actions which weren't part of the plot. It took me a while to spot them, but once I started looking for these little additions, they became a nice little reward for watching closely. I don't know whether the director was intending these scenes to be surreal. Maybe he was intimating that in an estate that size, with so many people there, all sorts of things will happen. Maybe the thrust was that actually there were other stories happening at the same time. If you do watch it though, I think these scenes are a little streak of humour running through a very dark story. There were other touches of humour too, but as the series progresses, those moments get fewer and the plot gets more intriguing and gripping.
As I wrote, it is worth watching, and I recommend it, but be warned that the subject matter is quite dark and it might be upsetting. It is a shame that drama and plotting of this quality was on Sky rather than one of the free-to-air channels, but that is one of my personal bugbears. Go see it, you won't regret it.
TTFN.
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