Olive Kitteridge
7.30pm, Tuesday, Showcase.
SCHOOL teacher Olive (Frances McDormand) is married to small-town pharmacist Henry (Richard Jenkins) and they have a son Christopher but this isn’t about happy families. There is something real and gritty and interesting about the new Showcase miniseries Olive Kitteridge.
In a season of repeats, sport and more repeats, this adaptation of Elizabeth Strout’s 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning book stands out – though it would probably do that even the heart of the ratings period.
Though in this case hopefully more people will actually take a chance on this quirky, dark four-part series.
Superbly acted and starring the brilliant and dependable Frances McDormand as the not quite likely titular character (ironically the series missed the Golden Globe award at the hands of Fargo – the original movie for which McDormand won her Oscar).
The series is a portrait of Olive’s life across 20 years.
The original book took the form of 13 short stories – interrelated but not quite a continuous narrative. The mini-series is similar.
We follow characters as they enter and leave Olive’s live – death is a re-occuring theme throughout all four parts but then so is love … not that pink-glassed version, the gritty, real, not-at-all-perfect stuff that we all live.
Set in the coastal town of Crosby, Maine, this is life through Olive’s eyes. And while Frances McDormand is one of the most likeable actresses on screen Olive is not and yet she’s likeable enough that you want to follow her journey. But it’s Richard Jenkins (The Visitor, Six Feet Under) as her husband that you empathise with (and sometimes want to slap). He is a brilliant foil for McDormand’s Olive.
Bill Murray – who has become a mainstay again in television and movies – stars too as a widower who comes into contact with the crusty and grumpy Olive particularly late in their lives.
Starting last week, this is television that you want people to make but that doesn’t come along often enough.
Director Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right, Laurel Canyon) pulls you in slowly but before you know it you’re hooked and Olive’s journey is yours.
– Tania Phillips
