An absorbing and haunting drama
James Croot looks at why even a lesser adaptation of Ian McEwan’s work makes for compelling viewing.
The first of three Ian McEwan adaptations destined for Kiwi screens this year, The Child in Time (8.30pm, Rialto, Saturday) might be the leastimpressive, but it is still an absorbing, haunting and heartbreaking drama.
From Atonement to Enduring Love and The Comfort of Strangers, the now 69-year-old English author’s works have transferred from page to screen to usually compelling and memorable results. Perhaps tellingly, of the trio set down for 2018 – Child is going to be followed by Oscar-baiting cinematic versions of On Chesil Beach and The Children Act – this is the only one not adapted by McEwan himself.
Based on his 1987 Whitbread Novel Award-winning novel (inspired apparently by the birth of McEwan’s own first offspring), Child is the story of children’s author Stephen Lewis (Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch). It focuses on the aftermath of an ordinary trip to the supermarket he made with four-year-old daughter Kate.Taking his eyes off her for one moment to pay the bill, he suddenly finds her gone without a trace. Frantic appeals to potential witnesses yield no results, nor does a trip to the local cop shop.
As Stephen and his wife Julie (Trainspotting‘s Kelly Macdonald) print flyers, they also drift apart, while remaining on amicable terms.
‘‘Is it always going to be like this?,’’ he opines.
‘‘Yes, a bad thing happened and we have to live that,’’ she responds.
Two years on and Kate’s room remains untouched. Stephen is having trouble with creative inspiration, so he has instead joined a Ministerial Children’s Education Committee at his publisher and bestfriend Charles’ request (Stephen Campbell Moore). But as he tries to find ways to move on, things just keep reminding him of the daughter he lost.
Director Julian Farino (Rome, Big Love) and screenwriter Stephen Butchard’s (Good Cop) adaptation is one very much driven by memories. The fractured narrative takes a little getting used to, but it allows the drama to unfold in elegiac and unexpected ways. Hand-held camerawork and natural lighting help add to the understated drama, while the clever use of point-of-view shots help us get inside Stephen’s tortured mind.
Of course, the presence of Cumberbatch and Macdonald also assist greatly. The former is terrific as the father who can’t forgive himself, while Macdonald provides a fabulous foil and emotional counterpoint – perhaps just as deeply wounded, but dealing with it in a different way to her husband.
It’s not perfect. Child lacks the emotional impact and true devastation of Chesil Beach or Atonement and doesn’t offer up quite the same knotty contemporary conundrums to chew over as Children Act. And some of the more ‘‘supernatural’’ elements may alienate some viewers (there are echoes of Kevin Costner’s 2002 audience-divider Dragonfly in the film’s ultimate meditation and an ending that you’ll either find cathartic or far too controversial).
However, in an era of television drama filled with tales of disappearing kids and adults suffering from mental-disintegration, it’s refreshing to see something so tautly told and sympathetically written.