The Man Who Cried

What else is there? Ciaran Hinds is extraordinary, again. This story is complex, difficult, and compassionate. The screenplay is outstanding. This movie moved me. All the performances were great, including the ones by the children.

Amanda Root and the actress who played Florrie wrench my heart.

Ciaran Hinds is the best actor working today. Yet another outstanding performance.

See it and open your heart.

I have never seen a mini series where there is only a handful of people I would spend two minutes with in my real life. The son and the 2 ladies on that boat. The rest repent but too late. The lead character needs to cry. He sound like he grew up in some trailer park in Mississippi not in North England. But I guess there types like him everywhere. In the first scene we see three people two adults and a little boy. The couple carry on, very much in love and the little boy is playing amongst them. What a lovely scene a family out with their son. Wrong, It was the father out with his married girlfriend professing his love and plans to marry each other. Mind he has a wife and that is his son he is dragging around on dates with his married girlfriend. Well the secret gets out and his girlfriend gets killed by her hubby and he kills himself. Now wait the bad person in not the married boyfriend, or the wife or even the hubby but the married boyfriends wife. He's lucky the Cheaters crew wasn't around because I would of rounded her hubby up for a ride and would of caught them red handed. Especially since he brought her son. So the next scene we see Big daddy(which he will now be known) crying and yelling at his wife. We are to believe she is some type of banshee, but we rarely see her and when we do I understand her anger. He picks up and takes the boy and leaves her with no money , nothing. The son and him start on their journey.

Now I am not going to tell the plot of this movie but I will give a breakdown of Big Daddy's activities 1)has a affair with married woman and brings his son along on their dates 2) He abandons his wife and takes his son simply because his girlfriend is killed by her hubby and she told them. What was she suppose to do? He is taking her son with him on dates!

3)Finds a wife to marry ( remember he is already married). She is nice enough and her husband owns a company that is doing good. Later we see him trying to move in on the business after the hubby dies and he marries her.

4)Wife has a sister. He is taken by her right away. He starts having a affair with her.

5) He gets the sister in law pregnant

6) Wife comes back. She is mad and has not done well since he abandoned her. He goes to jail for a year for Bigamy.

The son all through the mini series is seeing all of this. He is a adult in the second part and it is a wonder he is such a nice guy considering the creep the dad was. I am not sure if the lead male is suppose to be sympathetic or is he a public Service message. But I do know if he was a real person he could of been on Maury and Cheaters.

The show was entertaining and the acting was very good. Cairen Hinds was very handsome when he was young. I never saw him young like this or anything. So I can see how he could pull all of the ladies. But he was not a nice guy in anyway.

I can unequivocally recommend this film as I have viewed it at least 8 times. As a big fan of Ciaran Hinds as well as Amanda Root, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing them act together. They previously starred in "Persuasion" in which they also excelled. For all those who are incurable romantics, this is certainly a must-see.

Got to say that usually Cooksons are a bit predictable, with the heroine and villain being pretty clear cut from the outset. Here the relationships are bit more hazy and really only at the eleventh hour does a heroine emerge. All the characters are questionable and it is far from the usual black and white portrayal of life I associate with Cookson. A very realistic portrayal of family turmoil, strife and sibling rivalry.

Two of my favorite actresses here, a cameo from Gemma Craven as the man mad aristocrat and the brilliant (and under-sung genius of) Amanda Root makes this an absolute treat.

To deal with the spoiler at once - if it is one - and then have done with it: to intensify the realism of the film most of the figures have to speak their local northern dialect, which makes it rather difficult to understand for foreigners as myself. (And on the DVD there are no subtitles.) This is a pity as the description of a nation going through an economic depression is very convincingly shown as a background for the love-story (or rather love-stories) and would be interesting in other countries, too.

Besides, the central figure Abel Mason would appeal to his audience everywhere: This is a part which seems to have been invented from the beginning for the marvellous powers of Ciaran Hinds in presenting complicated characters. On the one hand side Abel seems to be of an old fashioned strict morality which shuts out all light-hearted play with women, on the other hand he even sails into bigamy. While serving a one-year-sentence in prison there exist (quite different) relations to three women, but even the judge is convinced that everything happened in and by good intentions.

One of these intentions is Able's search for a peaceful and secure place for his ten year old son to grow up. The relations to this son are beautifully acted from both sides and deeply moving for the spectator. Hinds is able to show quite another side of Able's character: There is the labourer desperately looking for work - but not under all conditions! There is the relatively young man looking for a really true love; and there is the careful and tender father, in spite of all his sorrows able to laugh with his son.

As the film develops the tragedy mainly on the faces of the actors, long parts can be understood without language - strengthening the general human appeal of its story.

There is more than one answer to the question: "Why does the man cry?" - and this is part of its fascination.