Moves rather slowly which is unfortunate since the storyline, although a good one, "APPEARS" to have been written quite poorly. It feels like this was written for a very small theatrical group, then handed to a director, who has been told to make an hour television matinee from a 25 minute script meant only for a very small stage. "Oh by the way, you have 24 hrs!". I liked the story but feel many will find fault before finishing it which is unfortunate. If written again I would definitely give it another try. I had real emotions for the poor husband and the evil wife so this tells me it's worth another stab at what the writer had intended.
2 Reviews
Utter rot
joegarbled-794823 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
The two stars of this dreadful bilge deserved a story and script far better than this. The "action" takes place mostly in a suburban house where a late middle aged couple ponder the future as the husband is about to retire from his job as a bank manager. The housewife dreads the prospect as her husband intends to take over the management of the home, even to the point of going shopping with her to make sure she doesn't "waste" money. She pointedly asks if this means he'll stop giving her, "her" money. (This scene reminded me of my parents when the old man finished his working days and my mother would grimly tell me "I can't go ANYWHERE without him tagging along!" as she liked to visit all the local thrift stores and secondhand junk shops.)
The wife is obviously "not all there", as a new neighbour finds out, and as luck would have it, they live right opposite a mental hospital. We learn that the wife has been prescribed medication for a "non-physical illness" and that she isn't taking them.
Faced with her already humdrum life taking a turn for the worse with the daily presence of her husband she decides that she needs a "long holiday away from him." This viewer assumed she planned to get herself committed to the mental hospital, the neighbour having told her that "It's really nice in there." but she's more conniving than that, and poisons her husband's food and he suffers a psychedelic trip. Having been a victim of the same thing, I can fully understand his terror. The husband goes on a rampage and ends up in the hospital. The play ends with the wife visiting her husband and a psychiatrist saying the patient was improving.
There's just too much screen time where there is NOTHING happening, we learn nothing about either character, apart from the fact that not all of her marbles are rolling in the same direction (caused by boredom and a childless marriage entering its final bend?) and the bank manager is a control freak and upper class in the cliche' "Don't mind me old girl, what, what what." Doctor Watson type, even driving the bank manager car of the 70s, a Rover P6. The story, such as it is, could've been told in half the time, it really had to be padded out to make it to 53mins. If you decide to waste your time watching as I did, at least it wasn't the 90mins of the average film time....this is most definitely a play rather than a "tv film".
The wife is obviously "not all there", as a new neighbour finds out, and as luck would have it, they live right opposite a mental hospital. We learn that the wife has been prescribed medication for a "non-physical illness" and that she isn't taking them.
Faced with her already humdrum life taking a turn for the worse with the daily presence of her husband she decides that she needs a "long holiday away from him." This viewer assumed she planned to get herself committed to the mental hospital, the neighbour having told her that "It's really nice in there." but she's more conniving than that, and poisons her husband's food and he suffers a psychedelic trip. Having been a victim of the same thing, I can fully understand his terror. The husband goes on a rampage and ends up in the hospital. The play ends with the wife visiting her husband and a psychiatrist saying the patient was improving.
There's just too much screen time where there is NOTHING happening, we learn nothing about either character, apart from the fact that not all of her marbles are rolling in the same direction (caused by boredom and a childless marriage entering its final bend?) and the bank manager is a control freak and upper class in the cliche' "Don't mind me old girl, what, what what." Doctor Watson type, even driving the bank manager car of the 70s, a Rover P6. The story, such as it is, could've been told in half the time, it really had to be padded out to make it to 53mins. If you decide to waste your time watching as I did, at least it wasn't the 90mins of the average film time....this is most definitely a play rather than a "tv film".
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