Synopsis
The citizens of the small British town of Pagford fight for the spot on the parish council after Barry Fairbrother dies.
2015 Directed by Jonny Campbell
The citizens of the small British town of Pagford fight for the spot on the parish council after Barry Fairbrother dies.
Michael Gambon Keeley Hawes Rufus Jones Rory Kinnear Julia McKenzie Joe Hurst Sonny Ashbourne Serkis Richard Glover Ria Choony Silas Carson Emily Grace Bevan Monica Dolan Lolita Chakrabarti Bryce Sanders Brian Vernel Simon McBurney Keeley Forsyth Hetty Baynes Menna Trussler Marie Critchley Simona Brown Michele Austin Abigail Lawrie
J.K. Rowling : Une place à prendre, Une Place à prendre, Una vacante imprevista, Случайная вакансия, Il Seggio Vacante, As férias casuais, Prázdné místo, Une place à prendre, The Casual Vacancy - Ein plötzlicher Todesfall, Вакантен пост, 캐주얼 베이컨시, כיסא פנוי, カジュアル・ベイカンシー 突然の空席
Terrible, and not just because I think the author of the novel is a piece of shit.
A disgusting little tale of human filth and how to further destroy a society by greedy needs. A BBC miniseries from the writing of Harry Potter's J.K. Rowling. Enjoyable dark comedy for sure, but I'm not sure that they nailed the backlash hard enough for a memorable pay-off.
If my review about Wolf Hall showed up my ignorance of Hilary Mantel's body of work on the printed page, then this review of The Casual Vacancy which has been broadcast for the past three Sunday evenings on BBC1, will serve as a further admission; I have never read a single word JK Rowling has ever wrote (nor have I ever watched a Harry Potter film in full) and I do not intend to.
With that in mind I naturally approached The Casual Vacancy with some hesitancy, going in completely for the cast list alone and the fact that it had no irritating bespectacled child actors waving wands about whilst the pedigree talent surrounding them essentially treated it like a…
A depressing book makes for slow burning drama. Acted brilliantly but too morose for my taste.
I liked the book. I like the show. It puts me down, also makes me laugh at certain points but it isn't a captivating story.
I would have enjoyed this a lot more if I hadn't recently finished the book. Too much is lost in translation from page to screen or excised completely, and as a result the story isn't as strong or engaging.
65/100
I bought the book when it came out years ago but until today I've never read it.
It's still in my bookshelf completely untouched.
The series itself doesn't really motivate me so much to grab the book after all this time but at least it didn't seem like a waste of time.
A funny one I decided to revisit in a post-JK Rowling Villain Arc world. I assume I'm the first person to watch this in 5 years because it has 0 seeders on every torrenting site.
It's a weird relic of David Cameron's Britain that generally fits a soft Labour propaganda mould, albeit Blair Labour rather than Corbyn Labour -- within ten mins our "compassionate hero" tells a heroin addict he won't give her money cause she'll just spent it on drugs, and we're meant to nod along as he does. How sad to kill off Rory Kinnear in your first episode! Abigail Lawrie is really great as Krystal and I think Brian Vernel has such a striking face, I was…
If I were locked in a room with Satan, Hitler, JK Rowling and a gun with three bullets, I would shoot JK Rowling three times.
Very much like the novel, this TV adaptation is absolutely nothing special. Far too depressing and wallowing in its hopelessness for my taste. It paints a perfect picture of the repetiveness, dullness, pettiness of small town life though.
While the first episode has pacing issues and struggles to properly introduce all characters, the finale comes to a powerful close that combines all the things Rowling set up before in a way that is narratively satisfying but not fully what I expected.
The cast consists of well-portrayed, unique characters. There's lots of focus on the teenagers in this town, who do not really have any influence over the politics that make up the actual plot - but in the end, we realize that this is the point.
That being said, I have to say that the story probably does work better in book-form - the adaptation does not really add anything (contrary to the Potter series, for example), while…
J.K. Rowling's writing is very intricate. That is one of my favorite aspects of her writing style. If I can, I love talking about it, be it Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts lately (if you keep up with my posts, you know what I mean), but her writing is a place of solace for me most of the time. It is familiar, but always surprising. On her latest novel, Lethal White, I could just feel how she truly captures social life with judgment sprinkled on it. Reminds me of grown-up talks, and this is coming from a grown up. The Casual Vacancy was her first novel for adults, and I have not read it since it came out. I want to,…
Loved this book.
I feel like the series was harder to follow and things like Barry's Ghost's messages didn't have as much of an impact.
However, phenomenal casting and world building. Could have been a full series I think but the three long episodes is manageable.
They do a great job of making you pissed off with rich old white conservative persnickity people. But it's totally realistic and that's why it's so fucking irritating.
I would be so annoyed to live in a place like this... Hot Fuzz village vibes for sure.
I appreciate how much more diversity there is in this book/series than Harry Potter.
Though it's fun to see Dumbledore pooping..... haha