LOVE WILL TEAR US APART
Tom’s marriage is on the rocks in this bitter-sweet new rom-com. But can a romantic tour of Europe save him and his family?
PICK OF THE WEEK US Tonight, BBC1, 9pm
From Pride And Prejudice to When Harry Met Sally, we all enjoy a romantic comedy, and particularly the thrilling tease as we wait to find out whether the hero and heroine will have got hitched by the end.
Well, Us isn’t quite like that. Instead, right from the beginning, we want to know whether Connie (Saskia Reeves) and Douglas (Tom Hollander) are really going to break up.
Their crisis begins when Connie wakes up her husband to share her thoughts: ‘Douglas, I’ve been thinking about leaving. I think our marriage might be over. Starting again. A new life. But not together.’
It’s not that there’s someone else and he’s done nothing wrong, she explains: ‘Things between us have run their course. You’re great. I just don’t think I can spend my whole life with you.’
Still, she says, there’s no reason they should abandon their plans for an epic holiday travelling the great cities of Europe with 18year-old son Albie (Tom Taylor) in tow before he goes to university.
Douglas is reluctant at first, but then the biochemist is a man with a plan: could the grand tour be a way for him to win Connie back?
Adapted by David Nicholls (One Day) from his best-selling novel, this four-part series paints a convincing portrait of a marriage that may just have come to the end of its natural life.
But every serious moment is offset by comic dialogue – ‘Are we going to do anything spontaneous?’ asks an exasperated Alfie, to which his father inevitably replies: ‘I haven’t planned to…’.
At the heart of the drama are two commanding performances. Douglas is the acme of the kind of character Hollander does so brilliantly well: a man a hair’s breadth away from hysterical despair just about hanging on to a rational exterior. Yet it’s Connie who’s in command of the story’s events, and Reeves embraces her as a woman who in discovering the full extent of her power later in life does so without losing an iota of humanity or warmth.
Marriage counsellors should brace themselves for a busy few weeks ahead while Us goes out.