The Casual Vacancy
The Casual Vacancy
TV-14 | 15 February 2015 (USA)
SEASON & EPISODES
  • 1
  • Reviews
    Hellen

    I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

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    Huievest

    Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

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    Guillelmina

    The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

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    Sarita Rafferty

    There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

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    ash-78884

    Do we really have to be reminded of how disgusting suburban British life can be. How miserable can one place be? I'm from the West-Country and I really. And why is this entertaining? We watched the first episode most of the way through. I was so depressed and infuriated with the horrible characters. There is not one character that could be the shining light in the hell-hole. I was so miserable that I forgot that I could switch it off. I eventually came around and did so. I read the plot on this site and I am so glad I will see no more of this garbage. Suicide, rape, more drugs and more hateful children as well as the horrid adults. I need a good comedy after this crap.

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    Pete Hand

    This series made me want to weep - at the senseless waste of acting talent and script material. For this is not a TV dramatization of "The Casual Vacancy" by J. K. Rowling. It's a TV dramatization of the Reader's Digest Condensed Version of The Casual Vacancy. What's more, it appears that slashing it down from a full series to a 3 part synopsis was done after filming already started, probably by the director tearing pages out on the set, rather than by intelligent script writers. How else to explain the presence of all the characters from the book, yet no role - not even dialog - for some of them? How else to explain all the setups in Episode 1 that are just left hanging with no follow-up? What does remain is excellent, completely capturing Rowling's characterizations and the petty snobbery of English village life, but the ruthless editing leaves too much out and too many loose ends. There's no exploration of the interaction between children and parents that is core to the book. There's no hint of who is behind the "ghost", a major plot device. Sukhvinder, who has a life-changing experience in the original, is literally seen but not heard. There's no resolution for the dysfunctional Price family. I don't know why the scriptwriters even bothered telling us Gaia's name, since she's reduced to a walk-on extra.What's left, basically, is an excellent performance from Michael Gambon and Julia McKenzie as the Mollisons. It's worth watching just for that. But that's the tragedy of this series - these are the canonical Morrisons, nobody will ever do it better. And that means the series will never be remade, and the full story will never be told.

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    Prismark10

    JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy, a grim adult novel which she wrote under pseudonym looks at life in a small market town of Pagford dominated by grotesque characters like they stepped out of an updated Dickens novel. I have heard it said that the book is also inspired by the play, An Inspector Calls, where various characters in the village are in effect the Birling family who have been responsible to the ruin of a young girl's life.Michael Gambon is the power mad, money grabbing parish councillor who wants to turn a community centre into a wellness spa. Julia McKenzie plays his malicious wife and Keeley Hawes is the flirty but brittle daughter in law. Rory Kinnear is the one who has fought against the closure of the community centre and whose sudden death create the casual vacancy in the parish council and Gambon wants his spineless son to stand and others also wish to contest the seat but a ghost writer on the internet is revealing some home truths.Yet Pagford is not a place just for the haves. Poverty is rife as well as drugs, drink, teenage sex and domestic violence. This is also the story of teenager Krystal Weedon, living with a drug addicted mother and looking after a baby brother with social workers hot on their trail.The three part drama series is a world away from Harry Potter. I know my daughter, a Rowling fan attempted to read The Casual Vacancy but gave up, it was not her kind of book. The series has a bittersweet and grim tone. It is political in context between the haves and haves not, the latter who are getting the rug pulled from under their feet.However the series was not wholly a success, maybe lacking humour, satire and maybe some comeuppance against some horrible people. I believe the ending was changed and softened to make it less tragic from the novel. However I felt that the series would had worked better as a two hours television film and maybe done with being less star studded, Emilia Fox for example was wasted.What is not in doubt is that Abigail Lawrie was outstanding as Krystal.

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    tooplanx

    Had to write a quick review to counteract the ridiculous first review from whom I can only assume is one of the privileged snooty characters from the programme. I honestly thought it was a joke outside. The programme isn't particularly crude: it shows a realistic depiction of fairly ordinary life, swearing and sexuality included.Yes, Britain really is like that, and the drama painted a very intimate and affecting portrait of the lives of ordinary people, the hardships they face, and their failings as human beings.Highly recommended. Apparently IMDb wants me to write more, so I'll say that the scenery is also very nice, so if you fancy a holiday somewhere with nice countryside, I believe it was filmed in the Cotswolds...

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