A PAIR LIKE US MUDDLING THROUGH WILL HOOK YOU IN
Us, BBC1
ANYONE in a long-term relationship will feel a painful pang of recognition watching Us. Do I try hard enough? Do we keep things fresh? Can you ever get back that first flush of excitement that got you together way back when?
These questions and a hundred more flutter like the rustling pages of a book as Tom Hollander and Saskia Reeves breathe weary life into Dougie and Connie, aka Us.
With their only son about to go off to university she stares into the imminent empty nest and declares, out of the blue, that she wants to fly the coop. He’s a tad taken aback.
You have to swallow a couple of dramatic devices to truly buy into the bones of Us, adapted by David Nicholls from his own novel. Would sullen son Albie (Tom Taylor) really agree to go on a pre-university jaunt across Europe with his parents, one that unbeknown to him is make or break time for them? Sorry Mum and Dad, Ibiza’s calling.
Meanwhile, Connie’s declaration of independence seems to catch her on the hop as much as it does Dougie. Has she thought it through? From the sketchedout state of their marriage we can see they’re in a rut and irritating molehills are growing into mountains. But would she really just take off? At least for once it was the woman having the mid-life crisis.
That it rings true is down to Hollander and Reeves, who give us a sense of the genuine affection in this faltering marriage. He desperately wants to change, to save what they have, and there’s a lesson there for us all.
Another major plus are flashbacks of them getting together, with Iain de Caestecker and Gina Bramhill excellent as younger versions of a pair for whom the attraction was always one of opposites.
But mostly what will keep you hooked on Us is the sheer relatability of its situation. For all its city hopping around Europe, this is a portrait of ordinary people, muddling through. People like us.