Imagine speaking to a customer service representative on the phone. You have a genuine problem. You don't have answers. You want help. You are desperate. You are human. Yet, the person you're speaking to sounds like a robot. He or she is trained to be formal and follow a rulebook. The person speaks in script. This frustrates you more. You want the person capable of solving your problem to empathize with you first. You want the person to have a personality. You want to shake the person out of automated mode - innovate a little, lower the guard, react, be human. You blame the "higher-ups," the company, for being so inflexible.
A Confession, a six-part mini-series, examines that one 'representative' who decides to break script for the greater good. It tells the true story of a man who, in the heat of the moment, places instinct over procedure to preserve the humanity of the situation. That he is an officer of the law - a Detective Superintendent investigating the case of a missing girl - only heightens the honesty of what is quite an unusual narrative. The rules here are literally set in stone; they form an unemotional system that is designed to solve emotional conflict. (Notice, for example, the way a police officer delivers bad news to a family; every stoic expression is rehearsed.). As a result, A Confession is a police procedural about the deficiencies of procedure - a rare beast that distinguishes, and walks the fragile bridge, between truth and justice.
DS Steve Fulcher (Martin Freeman; going from Watson to Sherlock) launches a search mission for 22-year-old Sian O'Callaghan, who has disappeared after a night at the local pub. Her family, led by her mother (Siobhan Finneran), hopes for a miracle. Fulcher makes difficult decisions, like choosing to shadow a suspect instead of instantly arresting him; he presumes this will lead them to an alive Sian, while his superiors expect her to be dead. Most of all, he improvises in a tense interrogation sequence: a moment that, over time, will define his career. Some may view his thinking - as a father, not a hardened cop - as a careless mistake, while others may appreciate it as an act of inherent humanity. In a way, the series is a sadder, less revolutionary version of Clint Eastwood's Sully, where Tom Hanks played the heroic American pilot who successfully landed an airplane in the Hudson only to be hauled to an National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) hearing about suspected "pilot error". His employers look at him as a defaulter; the passengers look at him as a God. Sometimes, the line is blurred between the two, and it's the Captain's self-doubt - or lack of it - that pulls focus. The film exaggerates the close-mindedness of the NTSB, but A Confession looks at PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence Act) with a similarly critical but less sensational gaze. It doesn't forget that, in the end, it's always about the victims and survivors. In the end, the hero is often relegated to the epilogue of history.
