Us

I thought this was wonderful. I'm enjoying these quality shows about the emotional shoals of later life. Tom Hollander is excellent, he made me in turn laugh with him, crawl with awkward embarrasment, cry at his couragous attempts to deal with his own vulnerabilities. Watching him deal with the inevitable failure as a parent, those moments all good parents have when they face the failures caused by their own personal limitations. The end was a bit too tidy, but otherwise, an emotionally grown up high quality drama.

This very well written mini series demands parents of a certain age and relationship longevity to hold a very real mirror to themselves and ask some very real but widely avoided questions. This heart warming and cringworthy just shows that "fairytale endings" are not the norm and are very removed from what most people expect. Loved it

Thoroughly enjoyed this series due to fine photography in various locations

There has been some criticism that this is 'slow', I disagree and would describe it more as 'studied'. Tom Hollander is fantastic as usual and it was lovely to see Sophie Grabol again. The storyline is engaging for the most part, despite the self centred son and wife, but I must admit I fast forwarded most of the flashback scenes which I found a bit boring. It's actually a very considered depiction of an introvert in an extrovert's world

Another one from the Guardian's Best of 2020 list, "Us" is a comedy drama mini-series with a tremendous central performance from Tom Hollander, but with great work from the rest of the cast too. We watched it all over one weekend and it sounds cliché to say, but it really spoke to me as a husband and father, about not taking my blessings for granted.

Douglas (Tom Hollander) desperately hopes that one final family holiday across Europe can put the spark back into his dwindling marriage to Connie (Saskia Reeves) and establish better lines of communication with his son, Albie (Tom Taylor). Despite acknowledging the need for the holiday to be fun and for him to change, Douglas' rigid agenda alienates his family, and an incident leads Albie to strike out on his own. Douglas tries to catch up with Albie and reminisces about the incidents in his life that have led to this moment.

Timing certainly does help with "Us" there's a romantic travelogue element as the family head from Paris, to Amsterdam, Venice and Barcelona, with a few other stops along the way. In a year when I've gone more than an hours drive from my house only once, seeing what that unbounded freedom for exploration was like seems a long, long time ago. I'm looking forward to getting back to it when we can.

As I say, it's Hollander's performance that is the real reason to come to the show. Douglas is, at times, an unappealing character. His heart is often in the right place, but he's shy and rigid and has assumed that his relationships will work out despite never really working on them. The end of the relationship is juxtaposed with the beginning of it, with Iain De Caestecker and Gina Bramhill playing younger versions of Douglas and Connie. This element, though well done, jarred for me a little bit as it should have taken place in the late 90's but often felt, from the cars and clothes that it was happening in the 1970's.

It's certainly not for everyone, it's a very "grown up" show dealing with a reality that can happen for all of us, if you don't work at it. A funny, droll, uplifting but also sad and sobering experience.