The Affair

The Great American Novel about adult problems in the form of an advanced series that does so many things so well that the few things it doesn't do so well is even more striking. First of all, it is very much the same at the beginning (each of the introductory three episodes alone is great, but together they are so the same that they are almost indistinguishable and, as a result, repetitive) and then the "rashamon" approach of an unreliable narrator, who plays the major role along with the characters. In principle, they work with in a very sophisticated way that is well thought out into the smallest details and it is clear, but sometimes even cheap. One thing is that everyone always sees themselves better than others see them and that they remember events differently, color something, adjust it, forget it or hide it, but here the views are often so primarily different (even with regard to the possibility that they both deliberately lie in all their essentials to divert attention) because they are too openly pushed into the viewer's face. Paradoxically, the lines of these two are more interesting when they are not together and the constant "contradictions" of their versions do not distract. And then the biggest snag is bizarre decision to make a live advertisement for the glamor of the redhead and the girl with the sexiest British accent named Ruth Wilson brunette with a mediocre American dialect, grrr... But otherwise, it's an extraordinarily well-played narratively playful dark intimate relationship movie that is unmatched when fully focused purely on characters and dialogs. On the contrary, it does not go that smoothly as it tries to develop a "clever" plot. In any case, it has a charge and an idea, and even in the current tsunami of quality series, it will not be lost. | S1: 4/5 | (05.01.2015)