Wonderful character development!

Excellent, a Must See

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

I just finished watching this series, and in the end, I must give it a thumbs down. It's well made for what it is. But what it is isn't anything very good.Sure, it's well made. It's well acted, well directed; it looks good, the sets and costumes and all bring the various periods to life. It's a classy, competent product. But what is the product? What is this thing they've made into a movie? Well, I'll tell you what it is: it's the story of a man's life. That's it. There's no plot other than that. Which is to say, there's no plot at all. By definition, a plot is connected sequence of events which follow a logical sequence to arrive at a climax. There's none of that here. There's just the events of one man's life. So what we have is not a plot, just a bunch of stuff that happens.Sorry, for me, plot is not optional, it is essential. Granted, some of the stuff that happens is interesting. Some of it is heart-wrenching. But in the end, it's still just a series of vignettes, not a coherent, integrated whole.

Certainly very well made and exceptionally well-acted. An interesting story of a man's life and the trials and happiness he is subjected to. The main character seems often irrevocably drawn back to memories of his past, painful ones and the melancholy of happiness which has missed his grasp. Tom Hollander was incredible, the release he had in some of his scenes and his whole characterisation was immaculate. Matthew McFaddyn too was engaging. Exceptionally good dialogue too which is essential for any drama, or any comedy for that matter, to work. Intriguing insight into corruption and the way people in positions of power are able to twist the lives of those beneath them.

An outstanding TV drama, superbly made and never less than engaging. The three-part ANY HUMAN HEART is in some ways a portrait of the 20th century, taking us through wars, political tribulations and the loneliness of modern times. Poignancy, romance, sex, death and drama, everything you could wish for in a show is present here.The actors are excellent. Jim Broadbent embodies weariness and Matthew Macfadyen gives a career-best turn. Hayley Atwell is simply glorious, while Gillian Anderson deservedly won a BAFTA for her turn as the terrifying Wallis Simpson. The production values for this are top-notch and the story draws the viewer in from the very beginning. I repeat, outstanding.

Going into the Masterpiece Classic presentation of "Any Human Heart" on DVD, I had conflicting thoughts.First up was that though I haven't read the book its based on by William Boyd, he is one of my favorite writers, with his last two thrillers, "Restless" and "Ordinary Thunderstorms," being two of the genre's best. And second, though as a Southerner I probably shouldn't admit this so regularly, I really can't much at all stand "Forrest Gump," so the story structure of "Any Human Heart," one man's life through most of the 20th century in which he rubs elbows with many famous people, gave me pause.Thankfully, Boyd's story really borrows only that basic outline from "Gump," but with less overbearing sentimentality and a lot more, sometimes very dark, wit. Boyd's novel and the four-part BBC series presented here tell the story of "writer" Logan Mountstuart, with the quotation marks in place because though he accomplished and experienced many things in his long life, he only managed to write two novels.Though the four-and-a-half-hour long series is a bit bloated by thoroughly unnecessary fantasy sequences that pop up throughout starring Mountstuart as a child, he's for the most part played by three very good English actors, Sam Claflin as the college-age Mountstuart, Matthew MacFadyen (who the ladies may remember from the version of "Pride & Prejudice" also starring Keira Knightley) as him in middle age, and the great Jim Broadbent as Mountstuart the elder.Throughout Mountstuart's saga, however, it's the women he loved and lost that play the most important parts. As the story opens, Broadbent's Mountstuart, clearly in fading health, is putting back together the pieces of his life using his memories of the women who had made it memorable. Standing out in a large ensemble are the radiant Hayley Atwell as Freya, the real love of his life, Kim Cattrall as Gloria, who gives the series much of its soul, and an unrecognizable but very funny Gillian Anderson as the Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson.Anderson and co-conspirator Tom Hollander as the duke bring a comic edge to the story as Mountstuart, enlisted as a "spy" during World War II, mostly spends his time tracking down what happened to the former king after the story told in "The King's Speech," at least as Boyd imagines it. Often dark humor thankfully runs throughout "Any Human Heart," as when later in life Mountstuart, simply in search of cheap health care, ends up brushing up against Germany's Baader Meinhof gang and later, in his last romantic conquest, gets involved with a French woman more than a little confused about her ancestry.But the beauty of "Any Human Heart" often comes not from these grand adventures (he also manages to meet Ernest Hemingway and Ian Fleming, who recruits him into the spying ranks), but in the failures that make for a well-rounded life. As Mountstuart manages to crap out on two marriages he was never terribly interested in and then get involved with his dead son's 16-year-old girlfriend (yes, he is more than a bit of a cad), it becomes harder and harder to cheer for him, but Macfadyen's layered performance makes you appreciate the man in whole, many warts and all.In the end, though, it's Broadbent who both gives the story its arc and brings it home with tenderness, particularly in his scenes with Cattrall, ultimately making this well worth checking out when it hits DVD next Tuesday, April 5 (yes, I'm writing this a bit early because it doubles as a newspaper column that comes out on Friday.) P.S.: One final note about editing: Though I didn't manage to catch this when it aired on PBS, I've heard that it was rather poorly edited, perhaps to remove some of the racier scenes that make Mountstuart's life so enjoyable, but this is the complete BBC version, so there's no need to worry about that.http://reelfanatic.blogspot.com