I had been hearing about this for some weeks and thought it sounded kind of interesting, mostly due to the awesome cast. The premise seemed kind of meh and in fact I hadn’t even made note of when it was going to be on. Just happened to be tuned to the channel when it was about to start and thought “what the heck”.Wow, did it turn out to be good.
For those that haven’t heard about it, it’s a family drama with Peter Sarsgaard and Thandie Newton as the central couple and an ensemble including Zachary Quinto, Uma Thurman and Brian Cox (to name a few) as their extended family. The title comes from the seemingly central point of the story: one character slaps another character’s out of control child at a birthday party. I say *seemingly *central point
because there’s naturally all kinds of other nasty little dramas playing out in each of the characters’ lives.
I’m dying to see what anyone else thinks about it, but I don’t want to spoil it(or keep rambling)if no one else has seen it yet.
I had (somehow) managed to avoid seeing any commercials or previews for this, even the preview at the beginning of the episode. I wasn’t sure who would be slapping whom.
By the end of the run, maybe they all end up slapping each other!
Is this based on a foreign TV show? (Just did a Wikipedia search - it’s Australian). Since it’s only eight episodes, I think I’ll try to keep recording it for a few more episodes at least.
I do like the concept of “short series” - or as NBC put it, a series “event” if it means the quality approaches some of the BBC series.
The premise certainly evokes the critically-acclaimed play “God of Carnage” though whenever I hear the title of the show, my mind reverts to the Love Shack parody “Glove Slap” on The Simpsons.
With that cast, I’m sure it’s interesting but I just don’t have the bandwidth for more TV these days.
Yeah. I watched the first part a few months ago because I couldn’t believe they’d made a show/mini-series with such a thin premise. Somehow I was still surprised to hear it was being remade in the US :dubious:
Yes, its the inevitable Americanised reworking of a successful tv show, in this case Australia, based on Christos Tsiolkas’s book. Australian version was great, but particularly helped by a top cast, so hopefully its as well served in the re-make.
The actual incident - one person walloping someone else’s kid at a barbecue - is really the catalyst for a whole lot of other fractured relationships to bust open. Its not a linear narrative, but looks at each character after the event, so the thinness of the premise is filled in with different camera angles [although additional elvish characters and goblin battles could also serve at a pinch].
I did not know it was based on a book. You say you *tried *to read it, so I don’t know how far you got, but in the book are the characters all deplorable, such that you don’t have sympathy for any of them? Because, that’s how the show is, yet I’m inexplicably drawn to it like flies to shit.
Who else wants to slap Hugo’s mother? Just how old is Hugo supposed to be anyway? And do they actually have the child actor “nursing” for these scenes, or is that a mannequin?
Oh god yes, a thousand times, yes! I can’t stand the actress (Melissa George) to begin with, so actually it’s great casting because now I doubly hate the character. Don’t know the logistics of the nursing scenes, but when those scenes come up, I’m so totally aware that I’m being manipulated by a devisive issue yet it still sucks (no puns intended ) me in.
I get the feeling, or maybe it’s supposed to be obvious, that we are indeed supposed to sort of dislike everyone. It sort of adds to the moral / emotional dilemma. If the kid wasn’t such the epitome of an irritating brat, we’d immediately take his and his parents’ side. Peter Sarrrrrrgaaaaarrrd’s cheating husband would be seen as nothing but a wanker but Thandie Newton’s character is such a beeotch you kind of can’t blame him.
Yep. I don’t believe an any of the other characters have addressed it yet, but you just wish someone would go off on her. It’s like the perfect, hateful finishing touch on a repulsive sundae (and no, I’m not trying to start a breast feeding conversation; you’d just have to see this obnoxious character in context to get what I mean).
The narrator makes me feel like I’m watching a bad telenova. It doesn’t add anything, so I don’t get it.
Casting Peter Sarsgaard as Greek is an interesting choice. Melissa George’s accent is bizarre.
I thought someone else was going to do the slapping. I think that would have been more interesting.
Maybe I missed something, but I’m not clear on the relationship between Gary and Rosie and Hector’s family. Are they related? I don’t think so, but I don’t understand why they were there. They are horrible, their child is a monster, and I don’t think anyone actually likes them. I wouldn’t want them at my birthday party.
Haven’t decided how I feel about it. I like the interactions between the individual characters, but I’m not yet sure about the show as a whole.
Yes, Peter S is always a treat (to me) but I agree it is an odd casting choice in light of the family’s ethnic origin.
Good question about the relationship of Rosie and Gary; I had to think about it for a moment and even now, I’m not sure I’m right, but I think Rosie is an old friend of Uma Thurman’s character and possibly has been around the family for years.
These people all suck; why can’t I stop watching!?
I haven’t seen any of the NBC series, but I did watch the Australian series. I liked it a lot, but it did have what I consider a big flaw: voice-over narration used for exposition. Does the NBC series have much of this?
I agree that most of the characters are horrid, but they’re horrid in different ways. One is a self-righteous new-age airhead, one is a weakling, one is an arrogant alpha male, one is an envious underachiever. . . Still, at the end I found some of the characters more sympathetic than others.
I thought Melissa George was really good in the Australian series. She played a deeply-troubled woman in a way that I found convincing. Rosie set my teeth on edge - I wouldn’t want to be around her for more than a couple of minutes at a time. That’s what the character is supposed to be like, and she nailed it.
The Australian series had a fair amount of nudity, which of course they can’t have on NBC. For instance, on American broadcast television you can’t have a kid who’s nearly five years old yell, “I want boobie!” and have the mother take out her breast to feed him in front of everyone. How did NBC handle this without reducing the emotional impact?
The word that keeps coming to mind as I watch is “loathsome.” These are a bunch of people engaging in bad behaviors of all sorts, and the “slap” sets up a series of events to open all of their closets to watch the skeletons fall out. The problem I’m having so far is that I can’t see that there’s any resolution here that will feel good, because there’s no protagonist in this story at all, no one to relate to, no one to feel bad for, nothing. Is that just me? Does anyone see a single sympathetic character in this whole mess?
I’ve been thinking about watching it. Again, mainly due to the cast. So I checked out Rotten Tomatoes. Currently 67% among critics, only 33% among audiences.
Critics’ comparisons to the Australian series were less than flattering. I watched the first two episodes.
Insofar as the breastfeeding scenes are concerned, we don’t see any boob at all. She sort of grabs the child, goes away from the other guests, and fiddles at her bodice with the child clutched to her chest. The child doesn’t ask for boobie, but he has enough of a mouth and attitude about him, which late breastfeeding doesn’t seem to be improving. Rosie and her son are totally dislikable characters. Is that the case in the Australian version?
missouri65,, Hector (the character played by Peter S.) is not the one who slaps the child.
) me in.