Just so...so bad

Brilliant and touching

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

(I guess I have included some spoiler-like elements)Having seen the Churchill play before an, I suppose, having an eye for setting or camera angles, this adaptation reminded me a lot of certain (low budget, I guess) BBC2/Channel TV dramas from the '80s/'90s which dealt with serious, current issues but nearly always in a harrowing or austere setting, and left me, as a younger man confused and isolated. Strangely as an older man (and I am struck by the focus on patriarchy in this movie, right down to the very last shot depicting the father holding (presumably) a grandchild, a child of one of his cloned sons, all the way to this urgency in older men to apologise for wrongs done). I have it 8/10 for the superb performances of the two venerable actors, the honest if stark adherence to the original play, but ultimately for (and some reviewers said they disliked it after a while) the very realistic talking over which occurs in those "serious conversations" in families where an observer would be forgiven for thinking nobody was listening to anybody else...but this is how man families interact. I found myself empathising with the father/perpetrator but also hating him in equal measures. The three "clones" we encounter seem to reflect the shock, anger, incredulity I would imagine anybody would experience when encountering such a revelation. It was certainly dramatic and very definitely emerging from theatre and perhaps this is why some reviewers were either apathetic or openly scornful, but this is precisely why I've enjoyed it a few times now. Definitely one for a film studies course as opposed to chatting enthusiastically about it in a cafe until 3am.

A Number is a clever play, so you can see why someone would think it was a good idea to transfer it into a TV piece.The experiment works in some respect. Tom Willkinson is good in his role, giving Salter all the qualities that make us want to like him and loath him all at the same time.Rhys Ifan's is the real revelation though, playing his multiple roles with skill and ease.The real thing that this piece comes down to though is whether you can put up with the slow pace of the whole thing or whether Carol Churchill's decision to leave so many sentences unanswered or spoken over. It's a good technique but one that grates after a while.I didn't hate 'A Number' but it certainly didn't make me want to watch it again.

I saw the photo in a magazine of a huge family of clones and the father, and thought this might be quite an interesting one-off drama, it turns out it wasn't what I had in mind at all, based on the play by Caryl Churchill. Basically Rhys Ifans (presumably the real one) comes home to his father Tom Wilkinson explaining about "a number! of clones roaming the streets, and the father insists there was only meant to be one. He reveals Ifans was created from the DNA of his former body, after he was killed somehow, and Wilkinson had him copied for the same son instead of tyring for a new child, he wasn't expecting the experts to make more than one, that wasn't in the deal. This one-hour drama is mainly just lots of chatting between Ifans and Wilkinson, you only see all the clones at the end when they are having a family get together, and then pose for that photo obviously. Not much action or spectacle, but I can imagine that is what is the stage play was like, simple, but with some good dialogue quite effective. Good!

I must say I really only watched this programme for Tom Wilkinson, although the premise was intriguing, with the idea that a man finds out he is a clone & that there are other copies of him walking around, & the confrontation with his father about what happened. And despite a decent storyline, right from the start it was clear it was originally for the stage, with the dialogue very much in the style of a David Mamet play (Oleanna springs to mind), with the progression & dialogue unclear in many places.The performances however can't be faulted, with excellent performances from Rhys Ifans & Tom Wilkinson, however perhaps the script would've been better adapted for television than taken directly from the play.