Parade's End = obsession
You guys, this is so so so good! I am halfway through the first ep and had to stop and share. I think I am going to buy the books. It's sharp (oh, the dialogue is to die for) and complicated and the cinematography is gorgeous. I really like Christopher (he corrects the entries in the Encyclopedia Britannica as a hobby! I think that means instant love on my part), I have just met Valentine but I already adore her because she looks utterly straightforward (the very opposite of Sylvia) and is a suffragette who interrupts meetings and protests! Ummm, she and Christopher had about two minutes worth of interaction so far, but I already ship them like mad. Oh, and there is Sylvia. She is perhaps the most complex character in all this. You know, it hit me - she is pretty much what Rebecca must have been like (from Daphne du Maurier's novel). I think she is a loathsome human being but she is beyond fascinating - you can see why everyone is in love with her. I think she is trapped by the Edwardian world more than anyone else.
Sylvia the night before her wedding. P.S., that is not the groom. She is totally amoral (she basically forced her future husband to marry her by claiming she was pregnant by him and not her lover) and totally beautiful.
The sequences leading to the wedding almost felt like something out of Henry Fielding.
Awwww, Christopher with 'his' (he has no idea if he is or isn't) son. Honestly, the whole stiff upper lip thing and repression are way overrated. He actually feels bad that he can't help but be sweet and caring with the boy because that is being soft. Therapy! Except they didn't have it back then.
It's pretty clear that this a marriage of two trapped people who have nothing in common with each other. (Also, Sylvia, stop throwing china. It's expensive).
Like I said, she is spiteful and cruel and a cheater and incapable of love, but she is fascinating and pitiable and trapped.
I just love this shot because it looks like a painting. Christopher after Sylvia ran off to Paris with another man. Personally, I'd be throwing a party, but I am not an Edwardian aristocrat. Also, he doesn't believe in divorce as it's not gentlemanly to do it to one's wife, no matter how awful she was. OMFG, Sylvia=Helen, Valentine=Taggie, and Christopher=Rupert from Jilly Cooper books. Minus all the orgies and Rupert's psycho past, that is. Well, and with FMF being literature and Jilly Cooper...not :P.
Sending his son to be with the kid's aunt because someone needs to take care of the boy. That kid is going to grow up so fucked up.
Sylvia writes him back she wants to come back as she's bored with her lover. And he takes her back because he doesn't believe in divorce and for the kid. Honestly, get a time machine and move to 1970s California, people!
Christopher meets Valentine. As she is running away from an angry mob of dudes because she was just protesting and wrecked their golf game. He helps her escape. And actually, you see the exact moment he falls for her.
Here because I love evening clothes.
So, basically if you love smart, gorgeous dramas full of severely repressed people, come right in.
Oh, and I peeked at the end of PE and
He left Sylvia forever but he won't divorce her. And Valentine says she doesn't care and moves in anyway. This is probably the first time I've cheered for adultery!!!! (Though there is a hint Sylvia will divorce him to marry a more socially desirable parti). And there is pretty much no furniture or anything else but they are about to host a party for his war comrades and she will be his hostess...And I about died when she was making his bed (which I think is a soldier's cot?) and just leaned in to smell his pillow. I used to do it when I first moved in with Mr. Mousie!!!! And there is his asking her to dance! And they look so ridiculously happy! And there is more (kdramas need to have some massive makeouts too).
Basically, I have no idea how they got to this point and I don't care because ship ship ship!
So, yes, I am obsessed.