Badlands (1973)

HE WAS 25 YEARS OLD. HE COMBED HIS HAIR LIKE JAMES DEAN. SHE WAS 15. SHE TOOK MUSIC LESSONS AND COULD TWIRL A BATON. FOR A WHILE THEY LIVED TOGETHER IN A TREE HOUSE. IN 1959, SHE WATCHED WHILE HE KILLED A LOT OF PEOPLE.

The true exploits of criminals and their crimes have long been a fascination to people, from the continued mystery of the case of Jack the Ripper to the birth of the non-fiction crime novel with Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Filmmakers are no exception to this rule. Just look at the films we’ve already looked at over the journey so far: All the President’s Men, Anatomy of a Murder, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, all with their beginnings in a true life criminal act. Even American Beauty was partly inspired by the case of Amy Fisher. In 1973, first timer Terrence Malick wrote and directed a film that took its inspiration from a killing spree that lasted two months in the late 1950s. It would also be the inspiration for two of Quentin Tarantino’s scripts (True Romance and Natural Born Killers). The film in question was Badlands.

Kit Carruthers (Martin Sheen), a young garbage collector, meets Holly Sargis (Sissy Spacek) and instantly fall for each other. When Holly’s father expresses his objections to their relationship, Kit murders him and the pair flee the house. Making their way to the Badlands of Montana, they leave a trail of bodies in their wake, making their attempts to stay ahead of those chasing them.

Though it was not actually acknowledged at the time of the film’s release, the story of Kit and Holly was loosely based on the real-life murder spree of 19-year old Charles Starkweather and his 14-year old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate, which began in December 1957 and ended with their capture in January 1958. Although the pair became a much-feared presence across Nebraska and Wyoming, the couple seemed to exist within their own world, equally infatuated with each other and separate from everyone else. Though from a happy home, Starkweather was an awkward boy growing up, cursed with bowed legs, a speech impediment and no ability for schoolwork. Developing a severe inferiority complex, he began to identify himself as an outsider of society, a rebel, an image very much constructed by his viewing of James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. Fugate herself was no great success in school, and found herself drawn to more exciting boys, the more rebellious type, boys like Starkweather. When the two got together, both of their parents advised Fugate against the relationship, knowing that Starkweather was bad news. Ultimately, these warnings proved true, as the pair would eventually go on a two month long spree that saw them kill a total of eleven people, including Fugate’s mother and stepfather. After being caught, Starkweather was eventually executed for his crimes, while Fugate was sentenced to life in prison, though she was released after 17 years… hell of a story, isn’t it?

The thing that drew Terrence Malick to the story of these two, often compared to some degree to Bonnie and Clyde, was not so much the actual criminal aspect of their journey, but their ‘lovers on the run’ story. In choosing to tell this tale, Malick focused on the nature of the romantic relationship that this pair could have whilst so dispassionately killing several people. The idea that Starkweather tried to make himself look and act like James Dean was a big part of this. Unlike Starkweather, Kit actually does look a little like Dean. His hair is similar; he holds a cigarette in his mouth in the same way; his dress sense consciously aping that of the big screen’s most iconic figure of youthful rebellion. He sees what he wants and isn’t shy about going for it. This is a big part of the attraction that draws Holly to Kit. A relatively closed off girl, still in school and easily led by a figure possessed of strength and charisma, she sees Kit as some with a sense of purpose, aimless as it may be. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but by God he’s getting there just as soon as he can. And Holly is an attractive prospect to Kit. He sees in her a kindred spirit, a restless soul looking to break free from whatever bonds happen to be holding her down. By “freeing” her, he gets to act out a kind of heroic fantasy to counteract the sense inferiority and rootless abandonment he feels; and she gets to accept a life more dramatic than her last one, where her mother is long dead and her father is a distant figure.

The real question about the couple, though, that lies very much at the heart of why Malick took on this story is this: how can these two people be in love when they are so cold and dispassionate about almost everything? Both Kit and Holly show little feeling one way or the other about what they’re doing, or even each other. On one of their afternoons by the river, before their criminal path begins, they have sex. Holly’s first time, she asks him if it went the way was supposed to, that that was all there was to it. He says it did, and yes. Holly doesn’t see what all the fuss was about. Neither does Kit. When Kit kills his first victim, Holly’s father, and takes the body down to the cellar of the Sargis home, he comes back upstairs with some news: “I found a toaster.” The unemotional reaction they have to almost everything is disquieting to say the least. Long into their spree, Holly describes herself and her situation: “At this moment, I didn’t feel shame or fear, but just kind of blah… like when you’re sitting there and all the water’s run out of the bathtub.” She’s currently on the run with a murderer, whom she certainly seems to be in some sort of love with, but this is how she appraises her current situation. It’s quite chilling.

The subtle cine-literacy of the film does a lot to push this mildly dreamlike haze of fantasy that rests over the film, since it is so important to both Kit and Holly that this journey they are on feels like a movie, at least to them. Kit’s allusion to looking like James Dean is mentioned more than once, and not just by Holly. He even adopts a stance like Dean’s character in Giant, shotgun resting across both shoulders with hands draped casually over both ends. Holly also constantly reads movie magazines, reading aloud parts she thinks Kit will like, like the facts and falsities of who loves whom in Hollywood. She even acts as our narrator, describing events in a manner akin to someone who’s read much but experienced little, utilising romantic clichés to recount the journey, referring to Kit as “from the wrong side of the tracks” and the importance of keeping their relationship from her father. Although Kit tells Holly that he likes her because she is mature for her 15 years (no giggling), she is still very much a young girl who has been dazzled by the easy laconic nature of someone who seems to have just walked off the movie screen. This is what keeps their relationship going. It’s what stops her from running any chance she got, and stops him from killing or otherwise abandoning her. Similar to the couple in Godard’s À bout de soufflé, this couple are kept together by the feeling of living beyond the rule of regular societal dictates.

However, what carries us along here is the barren nature of how the film unfolds, matching the strikingly empty backdrop of Montana. This sense of isolation here effectively means that we latch onto the two characters making their way across the state, just as they are getting lost in each other. It also encases us in the same feeling of separation from the influence of outside society and rules. Just as Kit and Holly come to know each other only within the context of miles of open sky and dustbowls, we too get to share in this insular world of their own making. Indeed, when they first spot a police helicopter that just happens to come along, there is a genuine feeling of something intrusive, of a world being shattered. For so long, Kit and Holly have went where they pleased, living off the land and what they could take from others, allowing themselves into anywhere they wanted, so when their world is now the one being invaded, it feels like something interrupted.

Malick’s hand over the film is one of an easy poetic style, but it matches his characters for a sense of emotional distance. Thanks to the two superb performances from Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, we can see everything about these two as they relate to each other and what’s around them. Malick’s script also gives us the required insight into how Holly feels about this boy who has swept her off her feet, in a manner of doing so. However, the visuals offer a more restrained look at the two. Whilst showing the gorgeous landscape of Colorado, we can also see what Holly doesn’t, either by choice or because she can’t. From here, we can see Kit’s simmering intensity, so often smoothed over by his easy-going affect. We see Kit’s need to make his mark, sometimes literally, in the world. He records messages for police to explain his motives and dispense the sage advice of the world-weary drifter. He also has a bizarre need to make marks with rocks. After the two have sex by the river, Kit grabs a huge rock and suggests they both smash their hand with it, so they’ll remember the day. When he is eventually caught, done by his own choosing, he waits for the police to catch up by building a small pile of rocks by the side of the road. Why? So they will always be able to tell where they caught the outlaw Kit Carruthers. When an officer tells him, “You’re quite an individual, Kit,” he answers, “You think they’ll take that into consideration.” It’s a strangely defiant line, as if Kit jokingly expects a certain degree of leniency because the judge likes his style.

Badlands is a great film, so subtle and sparse that it’s barely told at all. It’s a slow and steady pace, beautifully shot and showcasing two superb performances from Sheen and Spacek.

Apocalypse Now Redux (1979/2001)

THE HORROR... THE HORROR...

Apocalypse Now is, and probably always will be, one of the most notorious, infamous and legendary films of all time. Originally intended as a faux documentary to be filmed during the Vietnam War under the direction of George Lucas, it was constantly pushed back and rewritten and revisualised until it became a surreal and engulfing story directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The production was a nightmare, with the cast being changed or struck with illness; the sets being destroyed by storms; the budget more than doubling; and the intended four-month shoot extending to almost a year and a half. Coppola became almost maniacal in his push to complete the film, which took a further two years to edit, getting its release in 1979, three years after it had begun filming. In 2001, Coppola went back to the film and released a new edit of the film, reinstating scenes dropped from the original cut, adding a further 49 minutes to the already huge 153-minute running time. This was released as Apocalypse Now Redux.

Vietnam, 1969. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), an experienced Special Forces officer, is sent back into the jungle on a top-secret mission to find and kill renegade Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has set up his own army within the jungle. As Willard forges ahead into the jungle, he slowly descends into a state of border-line insanity brought on by his mission and the jungle itself, becoming more like the man he was sent to kill.

At the time of writing, it was perhaps only a couple of months ago that I had the good fortune to be able to see an all-new digital re-release of the original cut of Apocalypse Now on a big cinema screen. It had been years since I had seen it, and I would have kicked myself if I had missed it, particularly with the legendary sound design being played through big theatre sound. Some things genuinely do just need to be seen at least once on the big screen. The showing I went to was an early-afternoon Wednesday screening, the last in its run. When I came to two-and-a-half hours later, I was rather spaced out, walking through the streets back to my car in a mild daze, reeling from the spectacle I had just seen. I genuinely didn’t speak to anyone for around an hour and a half after the film finished. I can’t think of many ways to better describe it than that, other than perhaps this: as I sat in the theatre, which was only moderately busy, there were people around who, for one reason or another, couldn’t sit through the full running time like myself and some others could. Someone had to leave to go to the toilet, someone went to get another drink, the reasons varied. As I sat there, transfixed by the film onscreen, I did, on occasion, have my concentration broken now and then by one of those people moving from their seat. As they moved, I would glance at them, not contemptuously so, but simply because there was movement where there had been none before. My glance away from the film was momentary, less than a second, and I missed no line of dialogue nor visual metaphor. And yet, though I missed nothing of the film, for that split second of not looking at the screen… I missed looking at the screen. I was so absorbed by the action, by the visuals, by the enveloping soundtrack, that if I took myself out of it, even for a moment, I missed not being inside the atmosphere of the film. It was a comfortable bed that I was loathed to tear myself away from. Such is the strength that still remains in Apocalypse Now.

One of the truly great things about Apocalypse Now, and the 2001 re-edit Redux, is that I still can’t entirely decide if it’s one of the worst directed films ever or one of the best directed films ever. It’s ambitious, pretentious, flawed, vital, indulgent, incendiary filmmaking at its most extreme. Coppola himself says that, as the film progresses, the story itself becomes less important. He always said that it’s more of an experience than a film. There is the distinct impression that the film, at some point, ceases to be under the direction of Coppola and instead begins to direct itself, like a living entity trying explore itself in the same the way the characters in the film do. Off the top of my head, I can think of only one other film that has managed to achieve this sense that the film has come alive on its own and begun to dictate its own trajectory, beyond the control (and sometimes the understanding) of its original controller. That film is one I’ll eventually get to in this journey through my collection, but for now, I’ll keep my focus on Apocalypse Now Redux.

Most of what I already think about the original film remains intact in the light of the new material on show in Redux, despite some pretty sizable shifts in structure and flow. I’ll begin by talking about the original film, and then move onto other considerations developed by the new edit.

The original intentions of Apocalypse Now can generally be summed up with the same words that so many others, particularly film students, have used to describe their own projects – “I want to take a proper, realistic look at this, without the bullshit.  I don’t want the audience to watch it, I want them to feel it.” The Vietnam War is often described by those that were there as a truly grim and hazy experience, like a bad trip in a hostile place that never seemed to end. If this is the case, then Apocalypse Now truly is the closest thing to being there. Loosely basing itself on Joseph Conrad’s book Heart of Darkness, the film surges forward into a journey through corruption, amoral reasoning, madness and the dark soul that rests at the heart of every human being. Willard is sent to “terminate with extreme prejudice” Col. Kurtz, a brilliant soldier on his way to becoming one of the top brass in the country, because he has gone off the rails, has closed himself off from the outside world and begun to amass his own army of natives deep within Cambodia. To these less civilised people, he has become a deity, a god, an idol to whom they have given themselves over to completely. With this unwavering support, Kurtz begins fighting the war on his own terms, picking his own targets and ordering his new troops to kill them. That he seems to be getting some sort of results in his area is not the concern to the US military. To them, he has gone completely insane. Therefore, they formally charge him with murder (a notion both Kurtz and Willard find, in the context of where they are, insane) and assign Willard to kill him. On the journey, Willard reads over the numerous documents of Kurtz’s accomplishments, his multiple decorations, his many achievements, and comes to question the authority that would create such a brilliant and highly decorated soldier only to deem him mad for carrying out the duties of his command, but without their input and a ruthless efficiency that they find collectively disturbing. By the time Willard meets his intended target, his journey and his own dwindling mental state mean that he is more like Kurtz than himself.

That Kurtz is regularly alluded to as some sort of deity, and Willard’s journey towards him makes the Apocalypse Now something akin to a religious pilgrimage. People go on these types of journeys to feel closer to God, at least metaphorically. Willard’s journey is made more intense and intriguing because, not only does he know that he will have met God by the end of the trek, but it’s his job to kill him. Along the way, the more he reads of Kurtz’s exploits, both within the military and without, as well as letters from Kurtz to his family, the more Willard becomes indoctrinated into Kurtz’s way of thinking. He starts to buy into the cult of Kurtz. He begins to believe in him. The sense of the religious is scattered throughout the film at numerous instances, utilising religious iconography and imagery, both Western and Eastern, at various points to support this ideal. The whole voyage itself, often described as a descent into madness and Hell, is somewhat structured after a journey (albeit a meandering one) through the various levels of Hell suggested in Dante’s Inferno, with Willard acting as out Virgil. Willard begins in his Saigon hotel room, endlessly waiting on his next assignment – The First Circle of Limbo. As his boat sails down the river, he makes stops at regular intervals. There’s the famous helicopter blitz attack on a small village (Seventh Circle - Violence); there’s the USO show featuring three Playboy Bunnies (Second Circle - Lust); there’s stopping for mangoes, with Chef discussing food, before being chased away by a tiger (Third Circle – Gluttony, with the tiger acting as Cerberus). There’s even a possible allusion to the eternal torment of Greek character Sisyphus, who was condemned to spend eternity pushing a boulder to the top of a hill only to watch it roll back down and have to repeat the task forever. This point can be found in the scene where Willard’s boat happens upon a US Army outpost at a bridge with no commanding officer, which is under constant attack from Vietnamese troops. The US keeps trying to build the bridge; the enemy keeps destroying it. Kurtz’s appearance of a fat bald man (though much to the intense displeasure of director Coppola) actually extends this Eastern deity idea, making him look like some darkly perverted image of Buddha. And the final 15 minutes are a work of brutal ritual, figurative and literal.

The main sequences remain as big and powerful as always. The opening scene with Willard is still a supremely evocative sequence, stirring up the beginnings of the dark hysteria and tragedy that the rest of the film will build on. From the moment Lt. Col. Kilgore, played with a vigorous bravado by Robert Duvall, shows up, the whole film seems to run on a more intense heat, almost like the character makes the film itself stand more at attention. The helicopter attack on the village and school are masterworks of editing, of music, of frankly epic sound design. The Sisyphean bridge scene is something of a deliberate eeriness and shell-shocked horror, scattered with examples of aimless aggression and paranoia. Particularly disquieting is the unblinking soldier who blows up the remains of a Vietnamese squad hiding in the jungle, judging the aim and distance by ear, with an almost supernatural calm.

Kurtz’s compound of death is also still deeply unnerving, decorated with heads, skulls, corpses and words scrawled onto a wall – “OUR MOTTO: APOCALYPSE NOW”. Dennis Hopper’s jittery and intense photojournalist is a rather unsettling presence, but mainly because he’s such enthusiastic believer in Kurtz and his doctrine. He’s a fanatic. He really believes the man is a genius, a god, because when he says things, he has the strength and will to carry them out. As he tells Willard:

Photojournalist: I wish I had words, man. I wish I had words... I can tell ya

something like the other day he wanted to kill me. Somethin’ like that...

Willard: Why’d he wanna kill you?

Photojournalist: Because I took his picture. He said “If you take my picture

again, I'm gonna kill you.” And he meant it.

That he delivers that last line with more than a little awe, as if he’s honoured he should be so regarded by Kurtz, is unsettling.

Many people find the scenes with Brando to be the point where the film wanders too far, goes off the rails too much. Honestly, I disagree. I think it left the rails long before. Now the journey has come to an end and therefore Willard must finally come to make his choice… kill the man, or join him. Brando, for all of his weird dialogue (most of which he made up) and his grotesque appearance, is still a forceful and imposing presence in the film. There’s no doubting that this rambling maniac is capable of doing these terrible things, but there’s equally no doubting that he could inspire the following to do it. Brando has always been possessed of great charisma, indeed that’s why he became the idol to so many in real life. And that’s just exactly what cult leaders need – presence, charisma, the ability to command an audience’s attention. And the way he delivers the monologue about the enemy soldiers that inspired Kurtz to become what he is is still remarkably chilling, made more so because it’s somewhat understandable. That’s what makes Kurtz really horrifying, that he arrived at his mania with a logical clarity that’s difficult to deny.

The new changes made to the film in the Redux cut are mostly small ones, but feature two pretty large additions to the story. One is a return of the Playboy Bunnies from the USO show who had to leave quickly in their helicopter after the audience got too rowdy and started to storm the stage. Willard’s boat comes across a mostly abandoned medevac site that the Bunnies’ helicopter landed. Here, Willard trades two barrels of fuel so the other men on the boat can have one hour with two of them. The girls are now as druggy as most of the soldiers in the film (one absently talking about birds; the other how she feels more like a plaything than a person), so they seem completely unaware that they are being undressed and positioned. It’s a rather unsettling addition, furthering the impression that anyone lost in this morass will become instantly corrupted, be they soldier or civilian.

The other main addition is the French plantation scene, where Willard and his fellow travellers happen upon a plantation run by a French family and protected by French soldiers. This is a far more surreal sequence. Welcomed by the owners, the American soldiers are brought in and cleaned up, fed a proper meal in a very expensive and well-kept house. The family discuss politics and history, with things becoming more heated amongst themselves when Willard asks when they plan on returning to France, given the war that rages around them. They say that they shall never leave, because this is their home, this is their land. For the whole scene, we remain as well informed on the discussion as Willard, which is to say, not very. We get no subtitles to tell us what they say amongst each other, with only some of the conversation being in English and directed at Willard. When people begin seriously disagreeing, leaving the table, sometimes in tears, it’s rather awkward, for us and for Willard. Willard is eventually left at the table with a young woman, who never said a word during dinner. The two eventually go off, smoke some opium, and she tells him, “There are two of you, can’t you see? One that kills, and one that loves,” thus echoing this continued sense of moral duality in the piece. As it is, this particular sequence is one I’m inclined to say isn’t real, that it exists in a peculiar fantasy world, one into which Willard retreats for a sense of perspective. It’s not even just because the scene is bookended by a thick white mist, but because this whole sequence has such a different feel about it. It feels antiquated, outside of the rest of the film. Even the music suggests a period some forty years prior.

Overall, Apocalypse Now is still a film of immense power, liable to leave most people a bit punch-drunk after seeing it, though in the best possible way. The Redux version is one of the few films that has been served better from its reconstitution of old scenes. It’s still the dark, chaotic, living film as before, but now with extra moments of surreal vision, of bleak pontificating, of genuine emotional power. The original cut is still not an inferior one by comparison; it just serves to have its points made a bit better in the newer cut.

The American President (1995)

WHY CAN’T THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD HAVE THE ONE THING HE WANTS MOST?

In 1992, there was a film called A Few Good Men. Written by Aaron Sorkin, first as a play and then a screenplay, and directed by Rob Reiner, the film was a huge hit. It was thrilling, intelligent, dramatic and carried a satisfying weight of political discourse and idealistic consideration. It also garnered four Oscar nominations, one of which was for Jack Nicholson thundering performance. A few years later, after Reiner had a career stumble thanks to an almighty disaster with North, he hooked up again with Sorkin for his next politically centred script. This time, it was a romantic comedy about the US President’s attempts to win over a girl he likes… sort of a When President Harry Met Sally.

Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) is a widower raising a young daughter. He’s also President of the United States. Whilst working out a new environmental bill, he meets Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening), a paid political activist working for an environmental lobby group. He instantly takes a liking to her and the pair start dating. However, with not long to go before the next election, this new relationship leads his prime political opponent, Senator Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss), to launch an attack on the President’s character.

When The American President came out in 1995, it was pretty much free of anything to which it could be readily compared, outside of classic Capra movies or director Reiner’s back catalogue. However, by today’s standards of comparison, there is one thing that casts an almighty shadow over The American President. It’s another one of Aaron Sorkin’s creations… The West Wing. I’m a huge fan of The West Wing, which still remains one of the most intelligent, dramatic and funny television shows ever. That both properties are Sorkin products set in the White House isn’t where the similarities end. The American President is full of points that crop up in The West Wing, clear indicators of a future project being tested. For example, at one point, President Shepherd makes the point that he studied under a Nobel prize-winning economist. In The West Wing, President Bartlet is a Nobel prize-winning economist. That’s just one example of many. And the cast is strewn with actors who would go on to hold major roles in The West Wing. Martin Sheen, Anna Deavere Smith, Nina Siemaszko, Beau Billingslea, Joshua Malina, Ralph Meyering Jr., Thom Barry… there’s likely others, all of whom serve as regular reminders of a product that surpasses this one. Now, it certainly isn’t fair to this film to compare it to a product that wouldn’t exist until four years after it was released. Nevertheless, there’s no escaping that those familiar with the TV show will find this film slightly lacking. It’s a shame, because it’s a very good film.

Sorkin’s script is solid, and contains all of his trademark smart dialogue, political savvy, and the equal balance of idealism and realism that is something of a trademark of a Sorkin product. Now, all of that makes it seem like this is a far more political picture than it really is. Fittingly enough, it’s the tentative relationship between Shepherd and Wade that provide the simple heart for the piece. It’s simple enough stuff, but it’s carried with a nice degree of wit and charm. The political stuff is really there to add conflict and a depth to proceedings. There are some nicely refreshing touches throughout the film, too. In any other film of this ilk, with a single father taking his first steps into the dating world, the child would often be a concern, the cliché running that they would be a ball of frustrated emotion, crying about how their dad is trying to forget their mother, leading to a scene where the father has to calm them down and tell them that they would never forget their mother and blah blah blah. In this film, Shepherd’s daughter isn’t that way at all. She’s actually very well adjusted, happy to see her dad looking to find someone again. It’s these kinds of evasions of stock situations that set this film apart from others in a very agreeable manner.

Reiner’s direction aims his eye well, managing to draw out the classical characteristics of the script, so there’s a definite Capra-esque quality to the whole. He does well to see that the political aspects don’t bog down the romantic storyline, as well as making sure the romantic side of things doesn’t cheapen the political considerations that drive the conflict of the film. There may be the odd bit that seems a little hokey in this respect (John Seale’s cinematography has the light deliberately catching the eyes of Bening in moments of intimacy), but these can be overlooked when taking in the overall feeling. Marc Shaiman’s music is also wonderfully evocative of the classic sense of romantic notions, both of the heart and the body politic.

The cast do very well, with several standouts. Michael J. Fox’s Lewis Rothschild is full of fiery idealism, striving to make changes for the good, and pissed off if unsuccessful; Martin Sheen’s steady and calming A.J. MacInerney is a solid presence; Richard Dreyfuss’ Senator Rumson is a suitably shifty and smug individual; and Michael Douglas ably carries a sense of dignity and charm as President Shepherd. However, it’s Bening that gives the best performance. She nimbly shifts from astute political operator to girl who both woos and is wooed and back to the political side again. It’s great stuff. She also, alongside Sheen, has the best ear for Sorkin’s sharp and fast dialogue. It’s always a mark of Sorkin’s character’s intelligence that they can not only speak with great verbal dexterity, but also do so convincingly at great speed and Bening gets this. Also, Bening and Douglas do make a very appealing couple.

Despite now having to live in the shadow of The West Wing, The American President is a fine film, both warm and intelligent. Performances are strong throughout, the dialogue is great and it has a sturdy backbone in romance and politics, which go together here very well. It’s a solid show all round.