All you need is The Beatles (almost)

I want to be as positive as I can about Richard Curtis's newest film Yesterday. Together with About Time, it marks his return to the genre he does best - the heartwarming rom-com - after the terrible blip of The Boat That Rocked and that awful "No Pressure" commercial. It's also pretty cute that Danny Boyle, a director I associate primarily with grim and gritty fare like Trainspotting and its sequel - films which, alluring cast choices notwithstanding, I've not been able to bring myself to watch - agreed to direct something as lighthearted as Yesterday and stood the course. No "creative differences" here. (Also, I assume it's thanks to Boyle that we get an uncredited cameo from Robert Carlyle, albeit covered in prosthetics. Squee!) Finally, the film has a prominent Beatles theme, and I'm a huge fan of the fab four.

So when I say that I had problems with both the romance and the comedy parts of this rom-com, I know that sounds harsh, but I did enjoy it, honest. Neither Yesterday nor About Time reaches the heights of Four Weddings and A Funeral and Notting Hill (rom-com perfection) or Love Actually (a bit more flawed, but still very, very good). However, they are pleasant to watch, and I appreciate their underlying sweetness. Curtis, in my view, is at his best when he doesn't shy away from sentiment. I'll keep wishing and hoping (to quote a non-Beatles song) that he'll come up with another rom-com masterpiece, and if he doesn't, films in the style of Yesterday will do just fine.

The premise of the film is that its hero, Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), a failing musician, is just about to give up his music career when the whole world has a power shortage at exactly the same time and he's run over by a bus. He survives, but when he wakes up he finds that only he remembers The Beatles and their songs. The film isn't really interested in what exactly happened during that power shortage. It's less a sci-fi conundrum, more of a plot convenience so as to be able to set up the main story. There's also a running joke about random other phenomena who are unknown in this new reality. Fair enough: geek as I am, I still realise that a Beatles-themed rom-com is hardly the time or place to get into parallel universes and alternate realities. So, we just take it as read that Jack knows about The Beatles and everyone else (almost ) doesn't.

Jack is unable to resist passing off The Beatles' work as his own, and in time he achieves huge success. However, he feels dreadfully guilty. What's more, his new career takes him away from sweet schoolteacher Ellie (Lily James), his friend and (somewhat implausibly) manager during the lean years, whom he has just realised that he loves.

Yes, it's that old chestnut. The main problems with this film has to do with the story. First, the hero is a real whinger. Patel sings well - which is important - but struggles to make a convincing romantic lead, and no wonder. Even Hugh Grant in his heyday would have had his work cut out trying to make the glum Jack, who's miserable when he's a failure and miserable when he's a success, appealing. When Ellie, in good old Curtis-heroine fashion, takes the first step and confesses her love, Jack freezes instead of responding - not once, but twice. What's the poor girl to think except that he's just not that into her?

Second, the "fame and fortune versus true love" setup is not only a cliché, it's a very irritating one. It always bugs me when protagonists are called upon to sacrifice worldly pleasures like money, fame or power for the sake of their loved ones. Because why would their loved ones demand that of them? What kind of bastards are they, that they can't be happy when someone near to them hits the big time? An image which has stayed with me as an illustration of this kind of storyline is from a Barbara Taylor Bradford adaptation: the successful heroine's husband is lounging by the swimming pool while complaining via phone to her that he never sees her. Well, how do you think she pays for that pool, you jerk? Ellie gives mixed signals regarding her feelings about Jack's fame - she claims that she's thrilled for him, but at the same time asks him to stay with her when he has important meetings to attend, as a sort of evidence that he does care for her. I suspect his success isn't really the issue here, and that had he simply said "I love you and I want you to be by my side" at the right time, she could have got used to a life in luxury in California fairly easily.

For these reasons, the Jack-Ellie romance didn't grip me, and as for the comedy, I could have done with more of Curtis's trademark wit. The dialogue doesn't dazzle in, say, Notting Hill fashion (and speaking of Notting Hill, Anna Scott got to keep her movie career and get her man - only sayin'). Many of the funny lines go to Jack's American manager, who's blunt and unapologetically greedy, but her schtick gets old after a while, and when we see the last pop-eyed freeze-frame of her we realise how one-dimensional the character was all along.

What does work, and saves the film, is the admiration and affection it shows for The Beatles. Not only do we get to hear a great number of their songs, as rendered very creditably by Patel, Jack is hailed as "the greatest songwriter of all time" on the basis of their output. Curtis is never one for half-measures: just like Vincent van Gogh according to the Curtis-scripted Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor" was the best painter ever, so The Beatles, in his view, is obviously the best band ever. Reviewers have speculated that the film would have been more interesting if Jack had failed to make the Beatles songs popular in the modern age; in my opinion, they're missing the point. By having Jack's audiences being wild about Beatles songs, Curtis not only tips his hat to the band and its enduring appeal, he shows a touching faith in the taste of the masses. Like all his rom-coms (I'm not counting Boat) and "Vincent and the Doctor", Curtis's latest film is life-affirming.

Patel is at his most convincing too as a Beatles fan. I can partly make peace with Jack's misery because he clearly hates stealing from John, Paul, George and Ringo, although in his reality they're unaware of it. One of the best scenes in the film is when he meets the two other people in the world who remember The Beatles, and things unfold in another way than he feared.

Seeing as how he managed to coax Paul McCartney into singing "Hey Jude" at the 2012 Olympics inauguration ceremony, I expect Boyle shares Curtis's enthusiasm. Ultimately, you could say, they're just two fanboys, standing in front of a band, asking it to love them.

Spinning a tale without the spinner

OK. So. Obviously, I was not expecting some hotted-up, Once Upon A Time-style sorcerer, with or without scales (though considering Naomi Novik's Once-y take on Beauty and the Beast in Uprooted, there was some room for hope). But something along the more traditional line? Gnome? Goblin? To (reluctantly) quote Shrek, "curly-toed weirdo"? C'mon, is it too much to ask from a novel called Spinning Silver, where the inspirational fairy tale is referenced in the very first sentence?

Surely, even a normal person must find it a bit odd that a novel which takes inspiration from the story of Rumplestiltskin or Rumpelstiltskin (the latter spelling seems to be more common, although as a Oncer I stubbornly stick to the first one) fails to include any version of the title character. Granted, there are other interesting aspects of the story - like, say The Frog King, it's a fairy tale hearteningly devoid of a moral. The heroine doesn't achieve happiness by being good or kind but through sheer dumb luck, and strangely enough seems perfectly content with being hitched to the mercenary king who threatened to kill her three times if she didn't fulfil an impossible task. "Marry a bastard and you can still be happy" - now that is a message I can get behind. But remove the helpful but malevolent gold-spinner from the mix, and you're not left with much of a plot - or of anything. Nice as it is to see elements of the story pop up in new contexts in Spinning Silver - Ooh, there's the ring and necklace! Wow, three questions a day, that's classy, it's not even from the Grimm version! - they also remind you of the one element that is missing. This is my only major gripe, but me being me, it is major.

Spinning Silver is best enjoyed as an entirely independent tale with folklore and fairy-tale touches. As such, it is immensely readable, and just as good as Uprooted. Though I think Uprooted is my personal favourite, as it delivered on the sorcerer front, Spinning Silver is more ambitious in a way, as it's told from the point of view of multiple characters. Miryem is the granddaughter of a successful moneylender, and the daughter of a rubbish one. Her father being too kind-hearted to squeeze his clients, who duly take advantage of him, Miryem's family live in poverty while the people her father's lent money to prosper and look down on their benefactor at the same time. When she's sixteen, Miryem finally has enough and takes over the reins. She proves superb at making money, and saves her parents from penury - not that they're very happy about it, as it involves her becoming tough and hard-hearted. Refreshingly, the novel is very much on Miryem's side here. The villagers who complain about her are a whingey lot, and you gradually realise the reason they treated her father like dirt wasn't only because he was a moneylender, but because he is a Jew. But the hostile villagers aren't the only problem. The country - fairy-taley Russia-something (plus Lithuania? The name used for it is "Lithvas") - is plagued by the Staryk, inhabitants of a magical winter kingdom who go on raids for gold and leave cold and destruction in their wake. The Staryk King overhears a conversation where Miryem's father claims she can turn silver into gold, and makes her an offer she is in no position to refuse. Three times he leaves her silver from his kingdom. She must return the same amount of gold to him or die. If she succeeds, he will marry her.

Luckily, the Staryk silver has magical properties and proves valuable. With the help of a silversmith who hopes to marry her cousin, Miryem hawks an exquisite ring, then a necklace, then a crown, to the Duke of the nearest large town (where her grandfather lives). These items make his mousy, neglected daughter Irina seem entrancing, and give him hope of being able to marry her off to the Tsar himself. The only problem is, the outwardly young and handsome Tsar is an even worse bet marriage-wise than the Staryk King.

The third heroine of the story, besides Miryem and Irina, is Wanda, who becomes Miryem's servant when Wanda's father can't pay his debt. She seems simple compared to her wily mistress, but does in fact have a lot of good peasant common sense. Favourably disposed to Miryem, and even more to Miryem's kindly parents, Wanda and in time her brothers have an important part to play when it comes to helping Miryem - and, indirectly, Irina - out of what appears to be a hopeless situation.

Miryem and Irina are good, resourceful heroines, but seeing as they are seventeen at most when the story takes place, they are almost over-capable. I can buy Miryem being so sharp and bright, but when Irina proves to be a master political plotter who can outwit the whole of the Tsar's court I did think Novik overstrained the "sisters are doing it for themselves" theme a bit. The book blurb hints that the heroines may find love, and at one point I thought Miryem and Irina would fall for each other - they are quite alike in many ways. That's not the way the story goes, though, and I confess I was quite grateful that the two super-girls were allowed some interest in the opposite sex. I think my favourite of the heroine bunch is Wanda - also strong and capable, but in a more stolid, believable way, and with a touching affection for those who show affection to her.

With well-drawn characters, fascinating settings - among them the Staryk's land, where Miryem has to wrap her head around an alien culture, and the witch's house that exists in the Staryk land and the non-magic world at the same time - and a twisting plot, there's a lot to like about Spinning Silver. Also, the Staryk King - though no Sarkan or Solya - is a great deal more appealing than Katherine Arden's version of the Winter King and makes for a more than passable villain (or is he?). But although he has some Rumple-like traits - like always keeping his side of a bargain - the function he fills in the story is essentially the one of the gold-mad king. He may not reveal his name, but I'm pretty sure that there's one we can rule out.                  

The Glums (or, Les Misérables Andrew Davies style)

Yes, I know that I claimed to be looking forward to watching the Andrew Davies adaptation of Les Misérables. When it finally aired on Swedish television starting at the end of February, though, I wasn't exactly raring to go. What with the first episode being slow-moving, it has taken me this long to finally watch the rest of them, after they'd languished on my TiVo recorder box for months. The pace and story did pick up, but the adaptation remains easier to admire than to love. From the reviews I read before I watched it, I gathered that it was gloomy, that Jean Valjean was great and that it was difficult to get a handle on Javert. And guess what? The adaptation is gloomy, Jean Valjean is great and it's difficult to get a handle on Javert.

You could argue that it's no surprise when a programme with the title Les Misérables turns out to be on the glum side. The thing about Victor Hugo's original novel, though, was that it was such an exciting story full of colourful characters. That's what I've always felt was appealing about Les Mis, not any wallowing in the miserable state of some of the characters' lives. So the slowness and unrelenting seriousness of the first episode put me off rather, though in theory it's a clever idea to tell the back stories of Jean Valjean, Fantine and Marius in tandem. The glimpses from Marius's childhood don't really pay off much later, incidentally, which is a shame. The second episode, when the story gets going properly, is an improvement, but did we actually have to witness Fantine's teeth being pulled?

The one who carries this adaptation through some rough patches is Dominic West as Jean Valjean. He's been good in other parts where I've seen him, but here, freed from the "handsome lead" label, he really shines. Whether as a threatening convict, a shy and awkward do-gooder or the loving, possessive guardian of Cosette, he completely nails the characters. Of the Jean Valjeans I've seen - and there have been a couple - I believe he's the best, at least when it comes to the "straight" non-musical adaptations of the novel.

What about Javert, then? I have to admit I was one of those who raised my eyebrows enquiringly when they went with a black Javert, since he is not black in the novel. In fairness, though, if you want to do an ethnic switch, Javert is not a bad candidate - it fits neatly enough into his back story of an underdog who works himself up to an important position in the French police force. Also, fortunately, David Oyelowo is a strong actor, and manages to sell his overall Javert-ness better than, say, John Malkovich in the adaptation with Gérard Depardieu as Valjean. In fact, the credibility is more stretched by the general multiethnicity of the casting than the specific case of Javert. I can buy that 19th-century France wasn't uniformly white, but no way was it as diverse as this. It's a bit distracting, but there are rewards to accepting that a greater percentage of the characters have complicated back stories than is entirely probable. For instance, Adeel Akhtar's portayal of Thénardier is so spot on - the whole Thénardier clan is a success - that I'll gladly swallow their having a more exotic family tree than you'd usually find among French, small-town, 19th-century tavern keepers. After all, stranger things have happened.

To get back to Javert, Oyelowo puts in a good performance, but the problem lies in the way the character is written. One advantage with having trudged through the unabbreviated version of the novel - battles, sewers and all - is you get an answer to the question why Javert is seemingly so obsessed with a petty criminal (what's more, who's made good) like Valjean. The answer is: he isn't. The plot demands that the characters are confronted with each other time and again, but this is largely through coincidence. Whenever Javert chances on Valjean's trail, then of course he wants to nab him - after all, Valjean's the one who got away. But Javert's life isn't all about putting this one felon behind bars.

It would be truly novel if an adaptation chose to highlight this instead of depicting the Valjean-Javert relationship as the feud to end all feuds. Instead, Davies has gone the opposite route and made Javert more obsessed with Jean Valjean than in any other adaptation. Fair enough, but in that case there had better be an explanation as to why a stellar police officer would act so irrationally - a strange twist is that here, even Javert's spying on the barricade is tied up with his hunt for Jean Valjean. His motives are largely left a mystery, though. It's a pity, because there are promising hints here and there which would have been worthwhile following up on. When Jean Valjean saves Fantine from jail and takes care of her, after she's insulted him, Javert is flummoxed - "I don't understand you" is all he can say. Here's something one could have made something of: Jean Valjean as a puzzle, the only thing that doesn't fit Javert's orderly world view, and therefore a threat. But the adaptation never quite makes this case, or any other, in order to account for Javert's idée fixe.

As a mostly faithful adaptation, this series works well enough, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to someone who isn't already interested in Hugo's novel. For newcomers to Les Mis, I'd first recommend the musical (a stage version, where everyone can actually sing, rather than the film version), then the 1998 film with Liam Neeson as Valjean and Geoffrey Rush as the ultimate Javert. For all that it's six hours and a bit long, the Davies adaptation doesn't offer us that many more insights into the characters than the musical he despises. Marius and Cosette remain pretty uninteresting, though there's a forced attempt to give Cosette some "agency" at the end. The students still seem supremely silly in their willingness to die - and kill - for a lost cause (it was the same in the novel, though). At least in the musical they had some rousing songs. Lily Collins's Fantine is fine, but so is Uma Thurman in the Neeson film and pretty much any Fantine you get to see in the West End/on Broadway.

Where the adaptation wins over both musical and film is in the depiction of Jean Valjean and the Thénardiers. The latter hardly feature in the film and are grossly misrepresented - with the exception of Éponine, who gets a good press - in the musical. As for Jean Valjean, Davies gives due weight to some important issues which are usually glossed over in other Les Mis versions, such as the fact that Valjean does commit a theft (which he immediately regrets) after having met the Bishop of Digne - he steals a coin from a small boy. It is also made clear that he has no love for Marius. Beautiful as the ballad Bring Him Home from the musical is, Jean Valjean's feelings towards the young man who wants to take Cosette away from him are rather the exact reverse, which makes his saving of Marius all the more remarkable. And then there is West. If Jean Valjean is your favourite character from the story, the Davies adaptation is worth seeing for him alone.               

(Somewhat girly) reasons for keeping my HBO Nordic subscription

Summer travelling and a summer cold are two explanations for my lack of blogging of late, but if the truth be told I'm always lazy blogging-wise during my precious four-week summer holiday. At least my cold has given me an excuse for a fair amount of irresponsible TV watching. One modest goal has been to find reasons why I shouldn't cancel the subscription to HBO Nordic, which I only got in the first place because of Game of Thrones.

I admit I've always been a bit suspicious of HBO as it's the home of so many of those "must-see" series which I have no burning wish to watch: The Sopranos  (mafia in a domestic setting: apparently the guy dies); Six Feet Under (black humour in a funeral parlour); True Detective (truly depressed detectives solving truly depressing cases) and so on. Before my subscription, I'd tested Mad Men, which left me unimpressed, and The Wire, which I decided (to use the style of the script) was not my fucking cup of fucking tea. To sum up, I had reason to believe that this channel's image was a bit too edgy for the likes of me, and that I'd have been better off with an ABC Nordic subscription, if such a thing had existed.

However, it's really cheap. Also, the latest news on The Gilded Age, the new costume drama by Julian "Downton" Fellowes which has been an age in the making, is that it's been snapped up by HBO. When it finally airs (and I was probably over-optimistic in thinking it would be this year), I will want to see it as soon as possible, without having to wait for Swedish telly to air it or for the DVD box set - knowing as I do from my Once Upon a Time experiences how long that can take. And so, the hunt is on for HBO series that aren't too dark or too twisted. It's not that I expect sunshine all the way, I'd just rather be without a surfeit of dead kids or jokes involving making up stiffs so they look nice. Please?

Staying away from the ponderous historical dramas which I suspect are there to fill the Game of Thrones gap, as they seem really po-faced, I've managed to unearth three series which form a good enough excuse to keep on paying for HBO - for now:

Big Little Lies I started to watch this series because I expected enjoyable rich-bitch infighting in luxurious venues, but got something else - and was pleasantly surprised by it. Settings like a wealthy US East Coast town and characters like the yummy mummies who live there are usually the starting point of satire, but this series takes its protagonists seriously and sympathises with their trials. There is a surprising amount of female solidarity, and sometimes (not always) cat fights can be put to rest simply by the two combatants levelling with each other. I found myself warming to all the main female characters - meddling but loyal Madeline, fragile Celeste, tough newcomer Jane and the short-tempered hotshot Renata. Even Bonnie, introduced as the annoyingly perfect hippieish wife of Madeline's ex, turns out to have inner depths. A mildly addictive series which is also mildly depressing (the domestic violence plot line is pretty grim), but perked up by a sharp script and the characters' ability for survival.

Killing Eve I'm still not 100% sure about this series. It's apparently adapted from a book series about one of its protagonists, the female assassin with the code name Villanelle. She is very convincingly portrayed by Jodie Comer as a psychopath who takes an almost childish delight in her job, but once you know that's what Villanelle's all about, little that she does seems that interesting or shocking. The main reason I continue to watch is Sanda Oh's Eve, the agent who is set to hunt down Villanelle with very few resources and no official backing. I loved Sandra Oh's Christina in Grey's Anatomy - she's one of the reasons I kept watching that series for as long as I did - and she still has that enjoyably dry delivery as Eve. The script's good too. I'll finish season one and see how it goes.

Sex and the City I didn't watch this when I was younger because I suspected that I'd feel envious of the main characters both when it came to the sex part and the city part (the city in question being New York). And I probably would have. When I watched the very first episode and only laughed once, I thought "I'm too old for this". From episode two onwards, though, I started to enjoy this light-hearted sitcom more and more. It's not the least bit relatable to me - the four female leads all live in Manhattan, have glamorous jobs and get as much action as you'd expect from the title. But somehow it doesn't matter. It's restful with a TV programme where, unlike say in Big Little Lies, the stakes are never that high. No matter how many dating disasters the quartet goes through, there seems to be plenty more Manhattan bachelors on offer. It's blissfully unedgy escapism and ideal viewing for when you have a cold. Plus, I'm not that envious of the characters anymore - their lifestyle seems a bit exhausting. And the guys, though good-looking enough, lack that certain wow factor for me. Sour grapes, I suppose.

Reflections on the Downton Abbey film (or movie) trailers

Much of my TV time recently has been spent on rewatching programmes which I've already blogged about comprehensively. I've revisited Steven Moffat's whole stint as a Doctor Who show runner (minus the Chibnall-scripted Silurian two-parter which I couldn't face), which has made me really miss Moffat - one might not agree with all of his ideas and conceptions, but boy, the man can write. Also, I've finally finished a drawn-out rewatch of Downton Abbey, interrupted in the middle and taken up again during the spring/summer, in time for the film's/movie's release in September.

My aim was to prep myself and be able to give the kind of predictions that I've done before the later series of Downton the TV drama. Looking at the two recent trailers, though - and if you've missed them, you can find them here and here - I suspect that the film will be as standalone as one can expect and will not feature resolutions to dangling plot threads from the series. We are unlikely to find out why the first Mrs Bates really killed herself, if Sir Richard Carlisle ever published that story about Kemal Pamuk bedding Lady Mary and dying in the attempt (I suppose not, but doesn't his reticence deserve a mention in that case?) or if poor Sir Evelyn Napier will finally get over his Mary crush and marry someone else. I'll wager neither Michael Gregson nor Bertie Pelham's "artistic" and "delicate" Cousin Peter, both unconvincingly killed off off-stage in the TV series, will disconcert the Crawleys by coming back from the dead. Instead, the main thrust of the story seems to be centred on a royal visit to Downton Abbey, which means you won't have to know all the ins and outs of the TV series in order to follow the plot of the film, although you'll be much more invested if you're actually familiar with the Crawley family and their servants (as I assume they won't waste time reintroducing characters that most of us know pretty well by now to newcomers).While I understand why Fellowes and co. have made this decision - they don't want the boyfriends and girlfriends of old Downton fans, who get dragged along to the cinema though they've not really followed the show themselves, to die of boredom - I think it's a pity in a way, and I'll try to explain why.

When I'm in the middle of rewatching Downton, I'm struck by how good it really is; when it comes to getting me engaged in the characters, it knocks spots off Game of Thrones any day of the week. This tends to come as a bit of a surprise, though, because when I'm not rewatching Downton, I sometimes wonder whether I haven't hyped it a bit too much and whether it was worth it being obsessed with the series for years. I think part of the reason why it's so easy to forget how good this series can be is that there are, in a manner of speaking, two Downtons. Not an upstairs and a downstairs Downton - they're well intertwined - but what you could call the complex Downton and the simple Downton. Complex Downton has fascinating character development and character interactions, strong scenes and moving lines, sometimes containing a deeper wisdom. Simple Downton seems to share the outlook of the decent but naïve Earl of Grantham when it comes to world events as well as members of the Crawley household. Isn't the Dowager Countess funny? Aren't the Bateses sweet? Isn't Carson a loveable old curmudgeon? Isn't it awful that the good old days are coming to an end and the great landowners have to sell off their homes? Why can't Thomas just be nicer? Taking these things as read, simple Downton offers us whimsical plot lines centred on small household crises rather than high drama, points that are hammered home by repetitive events or exchanges, characters who act like caricatures of themselves and sentiments that don't always feel earned.

I understand that Downton is supposed to be light entertainment, and I would certainly not have wanted it "grittier". The mixture of drama and whimsy is the old Dickensian "streaky bacon" recipe, and some of the simple Downton elements work really well, mostly thanks to great performances by the actors stuck in the more whimsical plots. Kevin Doyle as Molesley has first-rate comic timing, which I suspect is a reason why his character was expanded to such a degree in the later series, and sparks fly in the scenes between Sue Johnston's Denker and Jeremy Swift's Spratt, although the Denker-Spratt wars have little relevance for the Crawley household saga. Nevertheless, I often feel that Downton sells itself short by going down the simple route. After all, you can be funny and give the characters their due, as evidenced by the plot line where an unwilling Mrs Patmore acts as a go-between between Mrs Hughes and Carson and tries to figure out whether he expects "a full marriage" from Mrs Hughes. It's hilarious, but also moving, and shows these three characters from the best possible light.

So, to finally get to the point: a royal visit to Downton Abbey, complete with a "scary butler" and stuck-up chef from the royal household, feels like a simple Downton plot. It will provide sumptuous scenes and downstairs antics set to jaunty music, but this isn't something that has - or should have - any profound impact on the protagonists' personal lives. What difference does it make, in the long run, if the visit is a success or not? And why on earth should Mary have to call in Carson - what's he supposed to achieve that Thomas can't? I'm afraid a lot of time will be wasted on the Royal Visit Plot which could have been better spent on more high-stakes drama and on exploring the lives of the characters we have come to know and love. Fellowes should trust his fans more. We're not in it for the spectacle, honest, though a few glamorous dance scenes are nice. He can afford to dig a little deeper.

On the other hand, now it's finally here, I intend to enjoy the Downton film to the utmost and not look a gift horse in the mouth. There are elements of the trailers that look very promising indeed. Let's hope Tom Branson's new love interest is really The One (or more accurately The Second One After Sybil) and not another dud. And it looks as if Thomas is finally gettin' some tail! Hurrah!

The Winter King and the annoying maiden

I had first planned to compare Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver and Katherine Arden's The Bear and the Nightingale, as they are both (though only partly in Novik's case) inspired by Russian folklore, have similar settings and both feature a Winter King as one of the mystical characters that appear. However, I'm reading Spinning Silver right now and enjoying it a great deal more than Arden's book. (Though, in view of its main, non-Russian fairy-tale inspiration, it has a distinct "Hamlet without the Prince" feel about it.) A comparison would mostly be about me liking Spinning Silver better, so maybe it's a little more fair to look at Arden's novel in its own right. I still have problems with it, though.

I feel a little bad about this, because it's not as if The Bear and the Nightingale is a badly written book. On the contrary, it's impressive and well put together, and the Russian folk-tale creatures give an interesting flavour to the proceedings. Though Vasya, the book's heroine, is pally with most of them, it is made clear that they have their own agenda and aren't really interested in taking sides in a Good versus Evil showdown - a characteristic in fairy-tale creatures that is often missing in more streamlined fantasy yarns. However, I for my part couldn't stand Vasya. "Mercy me, not another wild child heroine" was my first reaction (I was out of temper with Game of Thrones' Arya killing the Night King at the time), and she did little to grow on me after that.

As someone who has been a villain-lover all my life, I can confidently claim that mostly, it doesn't matter if you root for the "wrong" character in a book, film or TV series. It simply gives you a different perspective, and the work itself isn't ruined for you. However, when the whole narrative is constructed around the reader/viewer liking a certain character, then having your sympathies knocked off course can have serious consequences. In The Bear and the Nightingale, everyone - including her enemies - somehow or other think that Vasya is a big deal, and so if the reader remains sceptical, it's hard to get into the story. Vasya is the youngest child of a wealthy landowner in Medieval not-quite-Russia-yet. Her mother, whose mother had magic but who has none herself, longs for a magical daughter and so gives birth to Vasya while dying. Vasya can see magical creatures and generally has the Gift. Once when she's lost in the forest during one of her adventures, she runs into the Winter King and his wicked, chained, one-eyed brother - The Bear of the title - who both take an interest in her powers. The Winter King tasks her father to give his daughter a talisman meant to protect Vasya, but her old nurse hides away the talisman until the girl is "old enough". She and the Winter King (and it has to be said this reader - for pity's sake, just give her the thing!) have differing opinions as to when exactly "old enough" is.

I did feel for one character in this novel, but unfortunately it wasn't Vasya. Her stepmother, Anna, sees magical creatures too but believes them to be demons, and is miserable for thinking herself mad. The chapter that introduces her really kindled my sympathy for her terrible predicament, but as she's not a kind stepmother to Vasya, we're supposedly not meant to care too much. At any rate, no-one in the book does. Not Vasya, who knows what's really going on, but doesn't bother to have a heart-to-heart with her stepmother about who the creatures really are. (Because she's afraid of being outed as a witch? But isn't she supposed to be fearless?) Not the village's new priest, Father Konstantin, sent out in the neck of the woods as he's considered too dangerously charismatic in the city. When Anna confides in him, he first seems to take her seriously and talks about exorcism, but it soon becomes clear that there's only one person he's interested in "exorcising": Vasya, now in her teens, for whom he has the hots.

So, to sum up: the magical creatures all think the world of the wild, fey and sensually attractive Vasya and teach her useful skills such as expert horse-riding; Father Konstantin desires her; a neighbouring landowner has his eye on her; her stepmother is jealous of her; the Winter King himself is drawn to her and at one point gives her a horse who is also a nightingale and who is, naturally, devoted to her. It's what you could call the Ross Poldark syndrome. If you're into Ross, then you will like Poldark which is mostly about how great he is; and in this case, if you warm to Vasya you will probably enjoy this book (the first of a trilogy) hugely.

I didn't, and this may just be my own personal hang-ups. I was suffering from wild child fatigue and was indignant about how no-one cared about poor Anna's plight while gushing about Vasya. But I do think there's a bit more to it than that. There was nothing to latch on to when it came to Vasya except her being feisty and the champion of folk-tale spirits. Novik's heroines, if I'm allowed to compare just a little, are flawed and complex in another way: they try to live their lives as best they can without bothering about whether they're "empowering"or not. As it happens, they kind of are, but that's not their reason for being. In short, I did not understand the Vasya hype, which is one reason I remained unimpressed by the Winter King. The scenes with potential romantic tension between him and Vasya had me rolling my eyes. "In the stories, the bird-prince and the wicked sorcerer - they only come for the wild maiden", Vasya's nurse says to her father when they discuss marrying her off fast so the Winter King doesn't get his mitts on her. Now there's a depressing thought.

Father Konstantin's campaign against the old ways - ways which involve leaving gifts for household spirits and which he considers unholy - was a storyline that left me pretty cold. Konstantin is first set up as a serious antagonist with remarkable good looks and real talents when it comes to preaching and painting icons, but he becomes increasingly daft as the story goes on, and the supposed clash of beliefs is hard to get involved in. However, it must be said that as soon as the real villain of the piece seriously enters the story, the plot thickens and grows more exciting. The Bear is sketchy when it comes to personality, but I had some time for him as a fairy-tale threat. He plays his cards well, and even shows some appreciation of Anna's gifts - admittedly, because he wants to kill her and feast on her fear, but even so. I will probably read the next part of the trilogy, The Girl in the Tower, at some point, and then I'll be interested to see what he gets up to next.                    

Game of Thrones final season: Is it bad that I rather enjoyed it? (Spoilers galore!)

Sooo. Game of Thrones season eight. I feel a little bad about setting my thoughts on this season down at all, because judging from the Internet sources I've seen, many real GoT fans hated it. And though I came to enjoy the series, mostly from the second season onward, I can't call myself a die-hard fan. I didn't particularly want to like the series, only came round to it reluctantly and have always claimed that it was over-hyped. Of course it's much easier to enjoy a somewhat rushed final season of a series if your expectations aren't sky-high to begin with. It feels a little insulting to those more invested in the series and its characters to smugly state "well, I like it", especially as I see where they're coming from with many of their criticisms.

Having said all that, I've started writing blog posts about Game of Thrones, in spite of knowing nothing (in true Jon Snow fashion) about the books and suchlike, so I'll finish. It's hard to resist when there's plenty to discuss.

People have claimed that the series started going downhill once the scriptwriters ran out of books to adapt (George R.R. Martin hasn't yet finished the book series A Song of Ice and Fire on which the TV series is based - but you knew that already). From what I've found out from some superficial net surfing, the first four seasons are based on the books, and there was some material left for season five as well, but it was here the scriptwriters had to start flying solo in some instances. Now, if I would have had to guess where the join between adaptation and new content was in the series, I would have said season seven. Season five and six don't feel very different to what went before - though it's remarkable how many characters who have no role to play in the final showdowns get killed off in season six (no complaints from me in most cases). Season seven did have a more pacy and soap-operatic feel to it, but I kind of enjoyed that. I was never much of an admirer of the "edgy otherness" of Game of Thrones, and the more it resembled a regular epic drama, the more pleased I was. But yes, there was a change of tone. The dialogue in the earlier seasons was pretty full (at least it felt that way) of rambling speeches which were finished off with some strong lines, and the plot strands followed the same pattern in a way - they ambled along for a time, then there was a dramatic payoff. How much you enjoyed the plots depended on how good the payoff was and how well the road to getting there worked for you, much like the character monologues. In season seven, the monologuing is pretty much history, as are the plot lines that take some time to develop. It's less of an amble, more of a rush to the finish line. Season eight carries on the trend.

Ironically, though, the scriptwriters came into trouble with the fans not just for things that felt different to the "book seasons", but also for things that follow the tradition of the whole series - the "anything can happen" factor of earlier seasons clearly made them feel that they had to serve up some plot twists so as not to make the outcome too predictable. Here's the thing with predictability, though: sometimes an outcome is predictable because it's clearly the one that makes most sense. Injecting unpredictability just for the sake of it can be risky. For me, the most predictable character arcs in season eight were often the most satisfying. Theon was killed while redeeming himself by defending Bran, whom he had betrayed by invading Winterfell with his Ironborn troops many seasons back. Ser Jorah died in battle protecting his beloved Daenerys. Varys was dragon-executed for treason after yet another plot against his current ruler candidate in the higher interest of the realm. These deaths felt logical, and true to the characters.

As for the twists - I, for one, completely bought Daenerys's descent into darkness. It's fair to state beforehand that I never really cared for Daenerys. Having her torch King's Landing with her one remaining dragon after the town had surrendered boosted one of my particular hobby horses: the dangers of self-righteousness. I've already touched on how much I dislike murdering for moral reasons, and Daenerys did a lot of that. She was always implacable to her enemies, her rhetoric to her troops was continuously bloodthirsty, and she had intended to conquer King's Landing with all dragons blazing until Tyrion persuaded her otherwise. As her faith in his judgement dwindled, it's not that much of a leap to imagine that she would want to return to plan A. Many seasons ago, when she conquered Mereen, she had the whole slave-owning nobility of the town nailed up along the highway. Daenerys fans have pointed out that this is completely different from setting innocents - including children carrying affecting little wooden toys - aflame as the Mereen nobles were "bad men". However, as we later learned, there were one or two quite decent coves among them - inevitable when you go down the collective punishment route - and besides, there are some things so horrible that they remain wrong whoever you're doing them to.

Once Daenerys had a licence to mass-slaughter, as it were, it's not that strange that she ends up crossing another line. And after all, it's not unheard of in the history of warfare to specifically target civilians and level towns - resident kids and all - to the ground. The inhabitants of King's Landing weren't slaves: they had the option of leaving their homes or helping Daenerys out with conquering the city (as the slaves of Mereen did). However, though they loathed Cersei (as illustrated in her Walk of Shame), they still preferred her to an invading warrior queen and let themselves be used as pawns in Cersei's plans. Daenerys had already learned in Mereen, by the workings of the Sons of the Harpy, that civilians can pose a threat. If she needed arguments to rationalise the atrocity, they weren't impossible to find, especially as she was so convinced of possessing the moral high ground.

As for many of the other twists I wasn't too keen on them, so I can understand the fans' frustration there. Bran - who ended up king - was one of the first characters of the show I cared about, but back in the day when he was still a bright boy and hadn't merged with a mystical being which enabled him to have visions, detach himself from everyone and make vague statements in an annoying monotone. From the get-go of him becoming the Three-Eyed Raven, he was something of a dead loss, and it seems foolish to appoint someone who gives you lines like "I don't really 'want' anymore" to a position which requires savvyness in worldly affairs. He does have a great Small Council, though. Jaime haring back to Cersei after finally getting together with Brienne was a strange plot move - it's as if he hadn't had any character development the last five seasons. Jaimienne was the only GoT couple I shipped, but I felt that it would have been better if they had remained just mates if this was to be Jaime's end game. His "no, sorry, I'm not redeemed" speech might actually have worked then. And what was the deal with having Arya kill the Night King? I did think they backed away from making her a Grand Assassin Heroine quite neatly in the final episodes, though, so I can live with it. Her giving up her Kill List (which I was never a fan of) courtesy of The Hound and instead settling on a life of exploration felt like a good way of ending her story. Better Christopher Columbus than Titus Andronicus (yep, she went there).