The Honourable Woman

Excellent spy series!! Top performances, top plot, top dialogues, nice build up. Quality all the way!!! Top tier!!!

Throughout the eight episodes of The Honourable Woman the viewer is treated to a relevant, gutsy, challenging television experience. If you ever dismissed or plead ignorance over the Arab - Israeli conflict, you now have an emotional stake in the conflict. The characters are complex, the actors are skilled artisans. Ever since Maggie Gyllenhaal was slinking around in Secretary she has established a reputation for conquering the challenging, controversial roles. Maggie has conquered once again. The Honourable Woman will win a lot of trophies once the awards season has arrived. Amongst the superior cast is one actor who may have placed an exclamation point on his heretofore fine body of work. The trophy engravers should get a jump on etching Stephen Rea's name on the hardware from the Golden Globe, BAFTA, Emmy and Blockbuster(sic)awards. Rea simply owned every scene in which he appeared. His star rose with the release of the feisty film, The Crying Game whose plot twist remains one of the great and respected spoilers that is kept mum to this day. His efforts were rewarded with an Oscar nomination to go along with his Tony nomination. Twenty plus years later, it is time for this native and resident of Northern Ireland to get his due. Will The Honourable Woman return for another season? Hugo Blick and company drained every ounce out of the script and characters. Perhaps the dawn should best be left unsaid.

Usually, I tend to skip movies or series on sensitive and politicized issues as they usually emanate from black-and-white approach and simplified views or solution proposals. So, before my respective decision, I try to obtain a lot of background material and diverse opinions, meaning that I do not watch them "bright and early". This was also the case with The Honourable Woman that was revealed in 2014 and honored in 2015.

And from the first episodes, I was pleasantly surprised and ravished, both performance-wise and plot-wise. True, that Maggie Gyllenhaal as Nessa Stein was wonderful and fully deserved her Golden Globe Award, but I am somewhat puzzled that Stephen Rea's great performance was not too much noticed; he is an otherwise wonderful actor and his performance here as Sir Hugh Hayden-Hoyle was front-ranking as well, particularly under dialogs, including with Gyllenhaal; Rea does really know how to express profundity using minimalistic manners and scenes. Of course, all other performances were at least good as well, but they spent less time on screen.

The plot is captivating, at times a bit over-sophisticated and some scenes protracted, but the versatility and tensions are present and the storyline and values expressed go beyond confined Israeli-Palestinian issues. There are many twists and turns, "good guys die too", and the volume of 8 episodes lets all this enjoy in a relatively short time- frame.

All in all, a good series, recommended even to those not particularly fond of pending political issues. Even just following the dialogs and scenes with leading characters provide a memorable series experience.

Set in the middle of one of our era's most tragic and polarizing conflicts, it is perhaps understandable that reviewers here jump to the conclusion that it's propaganda for one side or the other. But it isn't. Using a family's internal struggle with the background being the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the writers almost can't win. But the preposterous claim that the series is justification for the current conflict when the shooting schedule began in July 2013...to say nothing of script writing, finding producers, and casting which would reach back into 2012 if not longer, demonstrates how explosive the setting is. As Nessa says, "It's the Middle East. Enemies is what you make." Therefore, it was brave of the project to chose that setting, but it shouldn't be seen as taking a stand for one side or the other.

The pace may be slow, but it's dreamlike point of view, for me, made it all the more transfixing. The cast, particularly Gyllenhaal's performance, is splendid, and the trap of being a mediator, whether is World politics or family dynamics demonstrates that hazard. ("You're either for me or against me.") This may be a series to watch all in one sitting, void of weekly waits and commercials. For me, it's the years best television series.

Other reviewers have commented - often derogatorily - on the slowness of Hugo Blick's production. However this is a deliberate technique that not only builds up tension - nothing is quite what it seems in the Steins' world - but also indicates the complexity of the issues tackled in this series. While Nessa Stein (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her brother Ephra (Andrew Buchan) appear philanthropic on the surface, using their wealth to foster better relationships between the Israelis and the Palestinians - they are also involved in underhand schemes, none of which are overtly revealed in the opening episodes. Instead director Blick uses a montage technique comprised of short scenes which might appear meaningless in themselves, but which cumulatively build up a picture of the Stein family's way of life in the present as well as the past. It is the viewers' responsibility to put these pieces of information together and try and work out what is going on. This task is often difficult, as Blick brings in characters who superficially seem to have nothing to do with the main plot-lines. It is only later on - in subsequent episodes - that we discover what their role in the overall story actually is. This technique draws attention to the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where it is often very difficult to identify who one's allies or one's enemies actually are. People have to be taken at face value, until one gets to know them. THE HONOURABLE WOMAN takes a bit of time to get going, but by the fourth episode it has gained in momentum, not only explaining the Stein family's shady past, but showing how the British security forces, led by Julia Walsh (Janet McTeer) and Hugo Hayden-Hoyle (Stephen Rea) have to get their hands morally dirty in order to make sense of what they are doing. There are no heroes or villains in this world; the most successful people are those who know how to play the system by forging and re-forging alliances, as well as exploiting others for personal gain. Viewers need to be a little patient with this series; if they do so, they will be amply rewarded.