‘Quiet on Set’

Toxic, sexualised working conditions on the sets of early iconic Nickleodeon children’s television shows come under scrutiny in this five part docuseries researched and directed by Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz.

The dreams of children (and, in some cases, their parents) to appear in some of the most iconic television series in the 1990s and early 2000s – and have fun doing them. At least on paper. But years in the making, the docuseries shares allegations of abuse, sexism, racism and inappropriate behaviour on sets, mostly under Nickleodeon ‘superstar’ creator, Dan Schneider. Added to which, two sex offenders working on set and in daily contact with kids were charged and imprisoned for child sexual abuse. Through interviews, the identity of the ‘main’ victim of imprisoned acting coach Brian Peck is revealed (sealed for more than 20 years until now) revealing the level of abuse he endured as a young teenager and its consequences.

Packed with interviews from former child-stars now adults, parents, journalists; archival footage and clips from various shows, Quiet on Set is, in its subject, challenging. Power is the name of the game as psychological tormenter Schneider abused his responsibilities and those around him. How much he was aware of the sexual abuse is moot (and certainly not stated by the documentary).

It’s a patchy docuseries. The power of testimony from Drake Bell (the victim) and his father in episodes three and four is unquestionable as Peck manipulated the environment around the teenager. The toxicity and sexualising of Schneider’s young stars is also there to be seen – although there’s an inevitable ‘as seen in today’s culture’ aspect. Yet, occasionally, the investigative journalism slips into anecdotal sensationalism verging on simple point proving. Repitition sets in with little new to add. But the discomfort and favouritism shown to kids as well as staff members, downplaying the role of female script writers along with marginalisation of children and adults should a word be spoken out of turn indicates not all was bonhomie of the set. And then there’s that interview.

Rating: 66%

‘Old God’s Time’ by Sebastian Barry

A novel set in the mind of a retired detective living alone in a small apartment overlooking the Irish Sea, Old God’s Time is a richly descriptive and rewarding narrative from one of Ireland’s best storytellers.

Recently retired from the Gardai after more than 40 years service, Tom Kettle lives an uneventful life in a small conversion of Queenstown Castle on Dalkey Island. Cramped with few luxuries, he’s barely unpacked. A widower with two adult children both deceased, his is a solitary existence – made the more so by, as the story develops, the uncertainties that Kettle is telling us as the novel’s narrator.

One winter’s afternoon, Kettle receives two unexpected guests – Gardai Wilson and O’Casey, two young officers sent to request help from the retired detective in the reopening of an old case: the prosecution of a priest for sexual abuse of children that decades earlier had been ‘lost in the system’. The then Chief Commissioner had ordered the case to be handed over to the Church authorities for an internal investigation – with the inevitable non-result. Kettle had been one of the two leading officers working on the case. But there’s a twist to its reopening with the priest now making what the Gardai believe to be a spurious accusation.

For Kettle the visit stirs up trauma and memories, many of which he would rather forget. He himself was abused, as was June, his deceased wife. It was the sharing of the experiences of the abuse in the Catholic-run orphanages that helped bond the couple. As he is reluctantly drawn into the investigation, so recollections of the past 40 years crowd his everyday interwoven with his current life. Long-repressed memories are triggered in this slow burn of profound sadness that has left a middling detective utterly alone overlooking the stormy seas.

It’s deeply affecting. Ireland’s malignant history is ever present in Barry’s writing and Old God’s Time is no different as the impact of the Catholic Church and its abuse of power and responsibility is explored in prose that is both lyrical and barbed. Barry avoids crusades or grandstanding. In Tom Kettle, the novelist has created a deeply empathic character and a voice of reason, even if there’s that level of uncertainty in the narration. He’s moral but flawed, tragic but hopeful, lonely but not alone as we experience the effects of violence and abuse that reverberate across generations.

‘She Said’

A tense, wholly engrossing investigative journalism feature as two female reporters of The New York Times blow the lid on the silence surrounding sexual assault in Hollywood.

In the mould of Spotlight and All the Presidents Men, the female led She Said responds to Hollywood’s worst kept secret – constant accusations against Harvey Weinstein of sexual abuse. With dogged resilience, Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan – Ruby Sparks, The Big Sick) and Megan Twohey (a particularly fine Carey Mulligan – An Education, Suffragette) look to cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’, knowing the ramifications should they get anything wrong. Travelling between New York, California and the UK, meeting sources in darkened bars, the two slowly build the article as they try to convince reluctant victims to go on record. On publication the article made history.

It’s a surprisingly tense telling from director Maria Schrader (Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe, TV’s Unorthodox) as revelation after revelation is exposed and followed through as deadlines loom. The strength of She Said (aside to the strong newsroom camaraderie and support – especially from department editor Rebecca Corbett – Patricia Clarkson, The Station Agent, The Party) is its calm telling and non-judgemental respect shown to the women who endured the abuse, kept silent due to the industry indifference – and then finally spoke out.

Surprisingly, She Said failed to secure any Oscar recognition.

Rating: 78%

‘Luckiest Girl Alive’

Adapted from the debut novel of Jessica Knoll and, although fictional, Luckiest Girl Alive is infused with elements and experiences in the writer’s personal life.

As an adult, Ani FaNelli (Mila Kunis – Black Swan, Bad Moms) seems to have it all – a dream job at a glossy New York magazine, an extensive wardrobe and a planned Nantucket wedding to Luke Harrison (Finn Wittrock – Judy, TV’s Ratched). But in having refused to speak publicly as a victim of a school shooting spree years earlier, Ani has long bottled her emotions of events in the lead up to the tragedy. With the publication of a book and the making of a documentary, things are about to change.

Director Mike Barker (TV’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Hit & Run) chooses breezy gloss to tell the story, veering away from the true grit of a narrative of privilege, bullying and sexual abuse. Notwithstanding, it’s the performances – and Mila Kundis in particular – that carry a film that remains engaging in its well-intentioned telling.

Rating: 58%

‘Broadchurch’ (Season 3)

Set some three years after the murder trial that ended season two, Broadchurch continues where it left off, with many familiar faces populating the small seaside town.

Part of the success of the earlier seasons was undoubtedly the chemistry between Detective Inspector Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman): both are back to continue their bickering spar of a professional partnership underscored by reluctant mutual respect. A rape following a 50th birthday celebration is the procedural case the two investigate – the solving of which is made doubly difficult by the fact Trish (Julie Hesmondhalgh) reports it on Tuesday morning – four days after the party.

A tight script with empathic characters underscored seasons one and two – and the latest installment is no different as the two officers are confronted with numerous suspects (a private event in an isolated location has helped narrow the search) and a wider narrative than that confined to the case. Sexual violence and misogyny; teenage schoolboys’ sharing of internet pornography; a rehoused sex offender all form part of that wider narrative. And, bubbling below the surface, is the fallout from the earlier murder of Danny in season one as parents Beth (Jodie Whittaker) and Mark (Andrew Buchan) look for closure.

The orignal season one storyline benefitted from a slow unfolding over 16 episodes. Season three, with its wider concerns, needed a similiar treatment. Sadly, whilst still engaging as a police prodecure, season three feels a little rushed, a little truncated in its social commentary. Even as a secondary narrative, Beth and Mark (in particular) dealing with their grief remains visceral in its power.

Rating: 70%

‘Young Mungo’ by Douglas Stuart

The sophomore novel from Douglas Stuart and a perfect accompaniment to Shuggie Bain, his Booker Prize winning debut, Young Mungo returns to the Glasgow of Stuart’s youth. A visceral coming-of-age, we are once more deposited into a world of abuse, alcoholism, violence and hatred. Yet, through the eyes and experiences of 15 year-old Mungo, we also see gentleness, love and loyalty.

Glasgow in the 1970s and an alcoholic mother more absent than present for her three children with a narrative centred around the youngest boy: comparisons to Shuggie Bain are inevitable. Yet, in its vivid telling, Young Mungo is more than the family drama of the earlier novel. Set within the same violent public housing estates, lines are drawn between protestants and catholics. Sectarian violence can erupt at any moment – much of it orchestrated by Mungo’s older brother, Hamish, an angry teenager already a father and living away from the family home. Unlike Shuggie Bain, it is the sister, Jodie, who provides the support – a hardworking schoolgirl who is forced to take evening work at a local pizza house to ensure food in on the table and some of the bills are paid. Ma has a new fancy man and a nighttime job – the only problem being that she has’nae told him she has kids.

A makeshift pigeon dovecot on wasteground becomes a focus for Mungo. Initially drawn to this out-of-place structure, he befriends its keeper, James, a youth not much older than himself. Both boys are lonely souls with James living virtually alone: his mother died recently and his father works on the North Sea oil rigs – two weeks work, one week off. A sense of sadness pervades as the two find solace in the pigeons and, eventually, each other.

The friendship evolves into a dangerous first love for both. The threat of discovery is constant: the punishment unspeakable when Mungo discovers James is catholic. Their dreams of escaping the terrors of Glasgow become more urgent, particularly with tensions rising on the estates and Hamish calling for local youth into battle. Their young love is countered by Jodie’s illicit sexual affair with a teacher at school: a miserable and manipulative relationship involving furtive encounters primarily in a caravan outside the city.

Interspersed within the gentle unfolding innocence of first love and the harsh reality of city life is the weekend fishing trip for Mungo to a loch outside Glasgow. Entrusted by his mother to two men she met at AA and who she barely knows, the boy is confronted by abuse, drunken banter, confused affection resulting in Young Mungo steering into a dark and wholly unexpected place.

Whilst not quite reaching the visceral heights of his first, Stuart’s novel is a gripping lyrical achievement. Characterisation is extraordinary – many appear for but a few pages (the shopkeeper and local farmer near to the loch, for example) yet are fully rounded people whose life stories are seemingly present in their fleeting presence within the narrative. Young Mungo is a confidently written and outward looking novel that firmly endorses the name of Douglas Stuart as a major new novelist.

In a quite extraodinary and inexplicable decision, Young Mungo failed to make even the Booker Prize longlist for 2022.

‘By the Grace of God’

Intense in its engagement, three men confront their pasts and the sexual abuse they experienced at the hands of priest, Le père Bernard Preynat (Bernard Verley – The Phantom of Liberty, Love in the Afternoon).

Shocked to discover self-confessed paedophile Preynat continues to have contact with young boys, successful banker and family man Alexandre Guérin (Melvil Poupaud – Laurence Anyways, Time to Leave) looks to the Church to redress the situation. A slow reluctance by Le cardinal Barbarin (François Marthouret – Marquis, Port au Prince), head of the Catholic Church in Lyon, results in a wider awareness of Church culpability.

Highlighting the varying effects of abuse on survivors and their families and directed by François Ozon (Frantz, In the House), By the Grace of God is based on true events. Led by a politicised François Debord (Denis Ménochet – Custody, Inglourious Basterds), Guérin and Emmanuel Thomassin (Swann Arlaud –Bloody Milk, Lazare) question authority, family – and faith.

Rating: 71%

‘Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story’

A two part documentary with a combined running time of three hours, Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story is a damning expose of the eponymous eccentric TV and radio presenter.

Enormously popular with the British public from the 1960s until his death in 2011, friend of royalty (Prince Charles) and politicians (including Margaret Thatcher) who raised millions of pounds for charity, Savile was a sexual predator who abused hundreds of children and women. It’s a sickening litany of abuse with Savile using his position over decades to access his vicitms. But equally sickening is the level of protection he received from authorities.

Popularity and ‘good (charitable) work’ protected Savile – friends in the right places (high ranking police officers, senior BBC management, politicians) made him somewhat untouchable. This uneven documentary blows the lid on the open secret that was Jimmy Savile. Interviews with witnesses, victims, journalists, fomer colleagues, archival footage, revelations of ignored complaints: interviews with people genuinely surprised at the time by the revelations.

Rowan Deacon’s documentary is a distressing and uncomfortable encounter. Interviews describing the abuse, the disbelief of action not be followed through, the cancellation of the airing by the BBC of a tell-all documentary. As former Sunday Times editor, Andrew Neil, confesses – the media failed the British public. But the documentary is also over-indulgent, whereby the first episode shows the public face: the second the reveal. Did it need three hours?

Rating: 54%

‘Mysterious Skin’

Unflinching, incendiary yet sensitive, Mysterious Skin is an early film from Queer Cinema autuer Gregg Araki (The Living End, Kaboom) and presents a tale of sexual abuse in the American heartland.

Adapted from the 1995 Scott Heim novel, the narrative follows, over the years, two very different young men. Events from when they were eight years old continue to haunt. Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt – Inception, Looper) has become a smooth-talking, swaggering hustler. Exhausting Kansas, he moves on to New York and a serious coming-of-age quickly follows. Shy Brian (Brady Corbet – Clouds of Sils Maria, Melancholia), who remembers little of the disturbing night, is obsessed by UFOs.

Gritty and disturbing, Mysterious Skin is honest, profound with, at its core, two very different but equally stunning central performances.

Rating: 68%

‘The Morning Show’ (Season 2)

The fallout from season one with the revelations of sexual abuse by Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell) and the suicide of one his victims inevitably takes centre stage in the ten-part second season. As network CEO Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) looks to rebuild the flagship breakfast program, so he invites Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) to return.

As with the first season, The Morning Show dips and weaves around the studio and into selective personal moments of the two anchors, Levy and Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon). Popular, ambitious, valued, the two are in a position to demand – and demand they do, with both looking to further bolster their careers: Levy with her own show, Jackson covering political issues.

Much fanfare is made of Levy’s return – only for her to disappear a week into her contract. Having spent years working with Kessler, Levy struggles with his absence and needs closure – and breathing space, uncertain as she is of her return to the network. Self-obsessed to the last, Levy heads off to Italy and Lake Como where Kessler is spending time in self-reflection. As Alex makes contact with her former colleague, so the breaking news across the globe is the early signs of the COVID pandemic. And Italy becomes an early European epicentre.

New and returning characters add subplots to the personal narratives, with the relationship between the legendary Laura Peterson (Julianna Marguiles), Alex’s temporary replacement, and Bradley Jackson core. But it’s the unfolding COVID drama and the reactions in the newsrooms that create the central news narrative to season two – and a palpable tension. The series itself was filmed during the timeframe and dialogue adapted to reflect the immediacy of the ‘outside’ world. It’s a necessary balance to the personal overblown melodrama developing in Italy where Kessler, though isolated and separated from his friends and family, is presented as a sympathetic figure beginning to recognise the wrong in his actions. It’s hard to swallow knowing his impact.

Rating: 64%