Channel 4 seems to have been pulling out the drama stops recently, with single films Wedding Belles and The Mark of Cain both receiving much acclaim. Last night was the turn of Secret Life, a drama by writer/director Rowan Joffe and starring Matthew Macfadyen as a convicted paedophile, newly released and trying not to reoffend.
The controversial subject matter was bound to provoke reactions, and so it did. Continue reading for links to bloggers’ reviews, as well as some of the national TV critics.
Beware: if you haven’t seen it yet, some of the reviews will reveal major plot points when you click through to them, especially about the ending. Expect it to show up on More4 soon, and it should be available on 4OD free for a week.
The bloggers
Crooks and Liars: Matthew Macfadyen… contradicts the more comfortable stereotype of dirty old men in raincoats. But the director has done his research — the majority of child sex offenders are nice, friendly, charming people; they would never get close to children, or their families, if they weren’t. It is exactly this — the intelligent, charming, likeable Charlie — that makes the film as disturbing and as sinister as it is.
Susan Hill: The programme was beautifully, impeccably directed and incredibly moving. There was no music and the silences were telling, with the occasional natural sound - the turn of a door handle, the creak of a swing, the sudden laughter of some children-making their points in a way that television rarely allows. The pace was exactly right.
Clair Woodward: It was uncomfortably brilliant viewing… Macfadyen managed to create a degree of sympathy for Charlie… [I] shifted very uneasily in my seat during the scenes in which he was grooming a young girl at a fairground.
My Town’s Shadow: Why oh why did i watch it??? I knew I’d find it upsetting and triggering. But I couldn’t not watch it. Rather naively I expected it to be different somehow. A very very one-sided and manipulative piece of film. Made me so angry.
Watch With Mothers: Sadly, the filmmakers were unable to prevent themselves from capping the once quite sedate pace and plot with a sensationalist twist, that in my opinion, undermined all the adequate work they’d done up until that point.
John Beresford, TV Scoop: There are no easy answers to the questions this drama raised about the lack of effective measures in place to prevent convicted child sex offenders from re-offending after prison and to its credit, Secret Life didn’t offer any.
The TV critics
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian: More uncomfortable than anything I’ve seen on television - it leaves you knotted-up inside and tense. And angry. Exactly as it’s supposed to … it’s almost as if someone at Channel 4 stumbled across a dusty file marked “Remit”.
Gerard O’Donovan, Daily Telegraph: One superb performance and a few insightful scenes don’t add up to a great, or even especially good drama overall. Secret Life’s flaws were its worthiness and its freefall structure, its failure to give Charlie anything but empty media-class sympathy.
Ian Johns, The Times: Secret Life lacked the dramatic efficacy of a film such as Little Children… Joffe’s film was bathed in a detached despair. I wonder how many people stayed the course to engage with issues that a documentary could have raised in a less gruelling way.
Iain Hepburn, Daily Mirror: Secret Life offered no excuses. No justification. It just laid out a situation — how easy it is for paedophiles to re-offend — and showed a different angle to it. It’s not going to have made comfortable viewing for anyone, and nor should it have. This was television at its most powerful.
What did you think? Was Secret Life masterful or manipulative, fantastic or flawed? Add your comments below.
Secret Life, Channel 4
A 'wonderful' drama, encapsulating all the fears, anxieties and destruction caused by an uncaring society, about a subject it knows little about. This is wherever one is in the 'SO' scale, under arrest or simply suspected.
The 'hostel/centre' staff were far too aloof and aggressive, for most people who work in those environments, particularly 'clinics'. I have met some wonderful staff in such organisations and a tiny number of ogres.
However, as a 'low-level SO', everything else was pretty bang on, in my experience, and in that of others, that could be concentrated into 90 minutes.
Well done Joffe, Macfadyen, C4 and all those involved.
Dr Nigel Leigh Oldfield.
I watched this with as much of an open mind as I could.
I found it compelling.
I do feel that it showed that any govt needs to find places that will keep them away from children and putting them into asylum units is certainly not helping.We need to have units for them.
It wasn't supposed to make you feel sorry for them but the inconsistancy of "Help" for this sort of person, you cannot rehabilitate them, but what to do with them.?
Acting was superb, as was the direction.
Matthew Macfadyen, always puts his heart and soul into any role. He did so with this very disturbing subject.
Excellent peformance as usual.
It was something that needed to be seen, but unfortunatly will do nothing to sort out the problem.
By the way if you didn't want to watch it, Why did you?
No point complainig after the fact is it. you had an off button on your remote or tv.
Firstly, I can appreciate that the subject matter is sensitive, controversial and "taboo." But for myself, that's exactly why I felt compelled to watch. Matthew's acting was superb and I'd imagine a great challenge, from an actor's point of view. I think it asked many questions and raised a number of issues which all need addressing. I believe the content was honest and was handled in as sensitive a way as possible. It was never going to be "comfortable" viewing-and it shouldn't be. There's nothing "comfortable" about it. If it made us, as viewers, feel unnerved, angry, uncomfortable, etc, then it did it's job. I think it was well done.