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This is not the worst time ever to be middle-aged. The coronavirus stalks nursing homes and pushes the elderly into glorified hibernation. Young people live what should be their most exciting years in purgatory. But for those in the middle, life stumbles along. Working from home, being with the kids all day, bingeing on Netflix, it’s not the cruelest fate, is it?
Okay, do not worry. Here comes author, screenwriter, and romantic comedy industry person David Nicholls with a searing reminder that life from 40 to your first hip replacement is actually rubbish. Your kids think you are an idiot. His wife wonders how she ended up married to Alan Partridge in real life. Nobody laughs at your dad’s jokes anymore. You have become Jeremy Clarkson’s tragic version of yourself.
Nicholls is adapting his own novel from 2014, and thank goodness he’s interested in more than just stacking the pathos. Us (BBC One, 9pm) is a poignant meditation on getting through the end of business life and uncovers chilling truths about what happens to relationships once spring and summer end and fall sets in.
It begins with Tom Hollander’s uptight biochemist Douglas being awakened in the dead of night by his wife Connie (Saskia Reeves) with the news that she decided to leave him. He is not seeking a divorce or anything so great or dramatic. However, the relationship has failed and he wants to start over.
This is uncomfortable on more than one front. In the first place, Douglas did not suspect that he felt that way. Plus, they’ve just booked a “grand tour” of Europe, which involves dragging their 18-year-old son Albie (Tom Taylor) from Paris to Madrid via Amsterdam and Rome.
The continent break will bring an additional measure of nostalgic anxiety to the target audience of metropolitan Brits in the US That’s how it used to be, they’ll sigh. Europe was her playground, no need for a passport or visa. How excruciatingly moving.
Nicholls isn’t above insanity, as readers of bestsellers like Starter for Ten and One Day will know. But it’s never just sentimental, always careful to sprinkle a little arsenic with the sleet. Here, in the first of the four episodes, the heartburn comes through flashbacks of a young Douglas and Connie (Iain De Caestecker and Gina Bramhill), as they begin their courtship.
I will not lie: these scenes are terrifying. That long time ago when they had fresh, free faces and modern haircuts and wrinkle-free complexions is … the 1990s. We know this because they have trendy, period-appropriate fringes and are listening to Primal Scream and Portishead. (and also for simple math). Forgive me as I pull the Nirvana smiley face t-shirt over my head and yell.
The ghost of Richard Curtis’s greatest hits occasionally makes its unwanted presence felt. There is, for example, an absurd early sequence in which Douglas chases Connie down the street in his socks and that only Four Weddings classic Hugh Grant could pull off. Yet these are just a few points in an opening installment that weaves together angst and buffoonery for an often sublime effect.
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