On Sky and Now the miniseries in four episodes with the extraordinary Olivia Colman and the good David Thewlis, inspired by a true story
The Anglo-American miniseries «Landscapers» (“An Almost Perfect Crime”) is one of the most intelligent, cultured and original productions in the popular genre black e crime: not to be missed even for those who think they already know everything. Directed by Will Sharpewhich makes a notable leap forward in her career, conceived and written with cinephile flair by Ed Sinclair, husband of the Oscar-winning protagonist, the favorite of the kingdom Olivia Colman. It is she who experiences in four episodes of 45 ‘each (on Sky and Now) a turbulent final of the bourgeois marital match complete with a double and calculated murder behind closed doors, alongside the bravo David Thewlis (Bertolucci’s “Siege” was the launch title).
“Landscapers” has the logical dryness and sentimental cynicism of a master like Clouzot was, and the landing on true history does not detract from the fictional power of history. In which two spouses are accused of killing her parents by burying them in the garden of an English terraced house. Then from London they move to France, keeping all the bourgeois décor, but in France when suspicions increase, they return without a euro, to England. Where they are arrested and follow their cursus honorum of half-truths and nutritious psychological doubts, eventually obtaining 25 years of imprisonment for both, half a century in two.
Just know that the crime, complete with ugly economic reasons, is inspired by a story of true degradation of affections, makes the film – let’s call it for what it really is – incredibly interesting and the director is brilliant in playing with temporal planes, altering spaces and periods, making the story sticky in which dramatic elements are introduced by surprise, with beautiful effect, that alter the perception of truth and responsibility. Surprising moments of the investigation in which the various characters are mixed as in a unicum which is then the conscience of the two protagonists, linked by an unshakable affection and perhaps by a diabolical plan. We will never know how to give the moral votes and the weight of the guilt, surely two elderly spouses were killed point-blank by their daughter, by the son-in-law or perhaps by both, it is to see the balance of the wrongs.
The invoice of the product dramatically increases curiosity, both for the skill of the whole cast in which the extraordinary Olivia Colman who had started her career as a queen excels, but also because there is a cinephile side that plays on the bank and winks at the viewer. In fact, the two alleged murders are in love with cinema: he limits himself to writing letters to Gerard Depardieu asking for an autograph (we will know if the actor really answers), while the woman is a true fan of great American cinema, especially western, especially John Wayne and Gary Cooper and in the first scene we see her spending a lot of money on a High Noon poster, probably not even original. Not only. In the end, when you have to make ends meet, the thriller, the noir, the crime story becomes, going from black and white to color, a true western with the two heroes who ride in the woods and escape in love into the technicolor eternity of cinema, protected by fiction even if today they are serving their sentence while proclaiming themselves innocent.
February 16, 2022 (change February 16, 2022 | 07:27)
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