My Zinc Bed

This film is about a psychological tug of war between a rich guy and two recovering alcoholics.

The first half of the film is just plain dialogs between people who do not even have any body gestures. To make matters worse, the scenes were shot with a statically positioned camera. The dialogs are probably meant to be sharp, crisp and challenging, but they turn out to be dull, repetitive and pretentious. Furthermore, the whole plot is so monotonous, pointless and narrow. It only repetitively talks about Paul's desire to stay abstinent despite Victor's challenges. And why did Victor challenge Paul in the first place? The filmmakers should have at least spend a little effort on character development.

"My Zinc Bed" is a huge waste of time.

I watched My Zinc Bed last night on BBC2. I had high hopes for this one-off drama but quite frankly it was a truly awful piece of Television. It was clearly made for American TV. Everything about it felt fake: the over the top acting, the shots and the music. It was a adapted from a play, but why? It was boring.

The story focuses on an alcoholic poet (Paddy Considine) who starts working for a millionaire businessman (Jonathan Pryce) after they meet for an interview. The poet then meets his wife (Uma Thurman) and the pair fall in love.

Every conversation was about the same thing. Being addicted to drink. The characters just kept winding each other up, which led to me being wound up and wanting to stop watching it. It tried to be so clever and intelligent but it was just dull. I think it failed because it went for the "less is more" strategy: one conversation between Uma Thurman (what attracted her to this TV movie in the first place?) and Paddy Considine led to them kissing and then being in love. And the only way that the audience knew that was through the weak narration.

Surely the BBC can do better in future.

Packed in a tight 75 + minutes, 'My Zinc Bed' follows a pretty simple structure. The film is mostly a chambre piece that is told through a series of conversations between three people: a recovering alcoholic poet, a businessman and his trophy wife. The director tackles the themes of alcoholism and desire through complicated relationships between the three characters. The tension is mostly built through dialogue. Paddy Considine, Jonathan Pryce and Uma Thurman deliver excellent performances as they get under the skin of the characters. Had lesser actors been cast, this would have been a borefest. Even though I find 75 minutes to be too short a time for a film's duration, I liked that the writer stays focused on the main story and its principle characters. Due to the complex themes, 'My Zinc Bed' may not be everybody's cup of tea and it has been an interesting and involving watch.

I registered on IMDb simply so I could share my appreciation of this marvellous production.

The three main characters were performed to perfection by the brilliant cast. Thank you for bringing this wonderful play to our screens. Good in all things except perhaps the extent to which it felt more like a stage production than a televisual one.

Paddy Considine particularly was spellbinding as his performance ranged from a man teetering on the brink of self annihilation, convinced his slightest misstep would result in his end, to conflicted. Presented with the stark depiction of a safe life without passion or a passionate life doomed to disaster his inner turmoil was made clear to us, and we felt his turmoil, fear and excitement.

Not quite sure what the film is trying to convey, but if it is implying that you have two choices - a life without passion in AA and life of passion and desire without AA and with active alcoholism, then that is incorrect and misleading. I don't understand why it is implying that joining AA to treat alcoholism is just a grim life of saying no to everything and denying yourself things out of fear of being triggered. That is not what AA is about. The goal is to be happy and functional. To flourish in all aspects of life. Some achieve it, some don't. The suggestion is to follow the tools of the program as fully as you can to achieve the maximum results. There's a reason they say "stick around for the miracle". People's lives improve in ways they never thought possible. Their lives get bigger.

The grim life is either being an active alcoholic or gritting your teeth in abstinence but still being dysfunctional and miserable - a dry drunk. AA helps with much more than just stopping drinking. The real work begins after you stop the craving and stay sober. Then you use tools to maintain sobriety and deal with life "on life's terms".

How can someone write about AA just by having friends in it, going to a few meetings or reading about it? If you don't get it, you don't get it. But it feels like someone saying probably all psychiatric medicine makes you a zombie and it's no life. That is not true either. Medicine can change and save lives. But you have to take it.

Is this film positing that AA removes all possibilities in your life except a grim sobriety? It just isn't true. There is much joy, laughter, support and growth in AA. There is a whole syndrome behind alcoholism beyond drinking that is helped in AA: isolating, not asking for help, destructive behavior ("character defects"). Something feels very creepy in this film. As someone said elsewhere, if this film gives a suffering alcoholic a distrust of AA and causes them not to seek help, that would be an awful result.