laufeyson-64475

OK, I watched the whole series now. What a mess. Such bad acting, an awful chemistry between the leads, such a fake execution and overly romantic ending!

I'm not surprised that John le Carré himself (the author of the novel which this idiotic series is based on) stated that people won't like this adaptation and that it is very slow.....(what he meant= boring). I love slow-paced drama, so the negative aspect of this series is not that it is slow...by all means, it is lifeless, unauthentic, dull and does not ring true. I think they tried to pump up the dull atmosphere and acting with the vibrant and bizarre colourful clothes, but no...did not help.

I also thought that Hollywood would finally stop casting young actresses opposite old actors? There is between Joseph and Charlie 20 years of age difference, 20 years!!!! The director surely tries to make the "couple" cute and normal, but such a girl would never look at that guy, never! Skarsgard may be sometimes a good actor and fine looking, but he really looks close to 50 now, which means older than his actual age, so their age gap appears huge and disturbing. Their chemistry and the kissing just feels ugly and wrong and totally creeps me out. He is also extremely bad at romantic scenes and feels devoid of any emotion. Do every colleagues or friends have to end up in bed together? Hollywood, come on... just stop with that, just stop!

There is absolutely no reason why Charlie would (after getting scared and creeped out in Athens) to agree and be a puppet of the Israelites. They did not give her enough information, motivation and time to choose, and nobody would travel all the way through Yogoslavia back then ALONE in the car for a mission so mysterious, unresolved and without any motivation. Btw, the statement about Yugoslavia borders bringing no big problems made me laugh, as I know very well how the borders back then were (like hell!), and today it certainly got better but it is still not great..especially the borders in Bulgaria and Macedonia. Alwayssss problems (Umm bribemoney).

I can see that Michael Shannon may get acting nods, although it's not his best work...but all the other actors are just awful and repeating their same facial expressions in every goddamn movie and series. When you feel that the scenes appear fake and would not happen in real life, then you know that the actors also do not believe in all that drama they are poorly delivering. The series is drowning in bad acting and editing.

This series truly may be the worst from BBC lately and without the big names attached to it, it would not be watched or get any accolades....so, I hope it won't steal the awards, marketing and attention from other deserving high-calibre series. 1/10

3 Episodes in and not much has happened regarding the development of the story. Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson are a force to watch, feel, sense and admire.

However, the series seems to test the patience of the viewer and make us ponder, whether we would still continue watching it, if Amy Adams (or another amazing actress) would not stare in it. Do we really wait by now in excitement for a new episode? Not really. The problem is neither the acting, nor the cast, nor the writing (which is great), nor the setting....it is the directing.

Having awarded an Emmy for Jean-Marc Vallée' mediocre directing last year for Big Little Lies (which was outstanding except the direction), HBO decided to use its incompetent employee again for a female-led story. I understand that it is his filmmaking idiosyncrasy to put fast flashbacks in every space possible. However, how unnerving does it actually get to watch every episode consisting merely of flashbacks? Fast and short ones. Also at every end of each episode. It's not going to stop. And this is called a filmmaking method...yeah, sure. This is called incompetence of delivering subtle and trauma-based memories from depressed and grieving characters. If you can't think of anything else than filling every episode with car rides, short interrogations with the same disturbed characters, two insults from the mother to Camille, long close-ups of Camille and only flashback scenes, then you surely are an incompetent director who should not be hired anymore.

This story with that cast and writer would make a great movie. Expanding it into 8 episodes, one episode does only contain 1-2 important scenes and the rest are only atmospheric, music video clip-like scenes.

Why should I continue watching it? It would be enough to watch a recap of every episode and that's it.