When I have a favourite book and I hear that it has been adapted for a TV drama or film I suppose I am aware that changes will be made, that imagery will be lost and several characters will be different or omitted altogether.
The drama Loving You is adapted from one of my favourite books Trust by Margaret Leroy so when I watched it I hoped that I would still like the way the story developed.
Loving You had had very favourable previews in the press and critics liked the simplicity of this production.
Chloe(Niamh Cusack) a teacher and divorced mother with two daughters meets Dan(Douglas Henshall) an Educational Psychologist. Dan moves in with Chloe and her daughters Lucy and Alice.
Dan is perfect and their relationship seems ideal. He also gets on well with Chloe's youngest daughter and does his best to relate to her teenage daughter. Then one day Dan is arrested after being accused of abusing a 6 year old girl he has been assessing. Chloe has to decide if Dan is still the man she thought he was.
Douglas Henshall never afraid to tackle controversial roles is at his best here. He is able to portray the warmth and sensitivity of Dan's character and then change to a man desperate to believe that he is still loved and trusted by the woman he adores.
Nothing to do with the plot, but I did love Douglas Henshall's short burst of air guitar to a track by Coldplay and that 'worst' face he made when trying to make the little girl laugh. These are the subtle details they make him so watchable
Complimentary is Niamh Cusack's Chloe, you are able to sympathize with her as she struggles to convince herself that the man she believes she knows well is innocent
I also liked the natural performances of the children.
At times I was quite concerned at both Chloe and Dan's lack of knowledge about child protection issues both professionally and privately. They both seemed quite naive in this respect. Although I do realize that the drama was trying to show how things which seem innocent can lead to misinterpretation.
Also felt quite sorry for Dan he was so lovely, yet he had no friends other than Chloe, no colleagues, and no union rep. I believe he had a daughter away at college, yet she made no effort to contact her Dad.
So, was the drama faithful to the book? Not really, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a good drama, the central themes of love and trust were still there. If you can get hold of a copy of the book Trust I think it would be worth reading. Even if you have seen this drama it won't spoil the book's ending, because it was changed for this adaptation.
