The Man Who Cried

I have never seen a mini series where there is only a handful of people I would spend two minutes with in my real life. The son and the 2 ladies on that boat. The rest repent but too late. The lead character needs to cry. He sound like he grew up in some trailer park in Mississippi not in North England. But I guess there types like him everywhere. In the first scene we see three people two adults and a little boy. The couple carry on, very much in love and the little boy is playing amongst them. What a lovely scene a family out with their son. Wrong, It was the father out with his married girlfriend professing his love and plans to marry each other. Mind he has a wife and that is his son he is dragging around on dates with his married girlfriend. Well the secret gets out and his girlfriend gets killed by her hubby and he kills himself. Now wait the bad person in not the married boyfriend, or the wife or even the hubby but the married boyfriends wife. He's lucky the Cheaters crew wasn't around because I would of rounded her hubby up for a ride and would of caught them red handed. Especially since he brought her son. So the next scene we see Big daddy(which he will now be known) crying and yelling at his wife. We are to believe she is some type of banshee, but we rarely see her and when we do I understand her anger. He picks up and takes the boy and leaves her with no money , nothing. The son and him start on their journey.

Now I am not going to tell the plot of this movie but I will give a breakdown of Big Daddy's activities 1)has a affair with married woman and brings his son along on their dates 2) He abandons his wife and takes his son simply because his girlfriend is killed by her hubby and she told them. What was she suppose to do? He is taking her son with him on dates!

3)Finds a wife to marry ( remember he is already married). She is nice enough and her husband owns a company that is doing good. Later we see him trying to move in on the business after the hubby dies and he marries her.

4)Wife has a sister. He is taken by her right away. He starts having a affair with her.

5) He gets the sister in law pregnant

6) Wife comes back. She is mad and has not done well since he abandoned her. He goes to jail for a year for Bigamy.

The son all through the mini series is seeing all of this. He is a adult in the second part and it is a wonder he is such a nice guy considering the creep the dad was. I am not sure if the lead male is suppose to be sympathetic or is he a public Service message. But I do know if he was a real person he could of been on Maury and Cheaters.

The show was entertaining and the acting was very good. Cairen Hinds was very handsome when he was young. I never saw him young like this or anything. So I can see how he could pull all of the ladies. But he was not a nice guy in anyway.

Catherine Cookson wrote some fantastic stories but this isn't one of them. I've not read the book but the story is pretty depressing. The redeeming factor is the hilarious cockney/east London accent of Abel's first wife. Worse than Bert's in Mary Poppins.

I'm not sure if were meant to feel sorry for Abel, a married man carrying on with a married woman. He then moves on to another woman, marries her whilst still married to first wife. He then leaves the second wife for her sister who is having his child. No wonder he cried!

It's slow and plodding and unlike her other stories (and subsequent dramas) this is not worth watching except for the wonderful Ciaran Hinds. The awful east London accent gets worse!

Got to say that usually Cooksons are a bit predictable, with the heroine and villain being pretty clear cut from the outset. Here the relationships are bit more hazy and really only at the eleventh hour does a heroine emerge. All the characters are questionable and it is far from the usual black and white portrayal of life I associate with Cookson. A very realistic portrayal of family turmoil, strife and sibling rivalry.

Two of my favorite actresses here, a cameo from Gemma Craven as the man mad aristocrat and the brilliant (and under-sung genius of) Amanda Root makes this an absolute treat.

Let me start by saying Catherine Cookson was a very popular British novelist who sold something like 100 million books during her career. If her books had been like this boiler plate TV production she would not have sold 100 books.

Here is the story: A man abruptly leaves a failed marriage and travels with his son to Northern England where he eventually has to marry again (and thus commit bigamy). Wife finds him....soap twists and turns abound--second wife Hilda discovers she is not her father's daughter etc etc....

The first half is by far the best...the boy Dick is played by a charismatic child actor he makes the first half. The second half of the series is lousy from the 2 dimensional rendition of war time England to just the way the screen writers condensed and parsed the novel--a common problem with book/movies.

Another problem for me was the Appalachian type sound track...it is incongruous to the ___location.

This is an over dramatized soap with below average production values. I blame the writers and a couple miscast characters.

One measure I have of soaps is if they make make me care about the characters... in the second half of this film I grew to dislike all of them. Beware!

What else is there? Ciaran Hinds is extraordinary, again. This story is complex, difficult, and compassionate. The screenplay is outstanding. This movie moved me. All the performances were great, including the ones by the children.

Amanda Root and the actress who played Florrie wrench my heart.

Ciaran Hinds is the best actor working today. Yet another outstanding performance.

See it and open your heart.