Thursday, January 07, 2016

Recommended: River on @netflix

Netflix knows I'm a Simon Pegg fan (who isn't?) and so it recently recommended Hector and the Search for Happiness.  It took me about 23 minutes to realize "This is a really good movie, one Lori will really enjoy."  For New Years she finally watched it with me.  We really enjoyed it.  So I'd recommend that, too.

It's just about 23 minutes in that Stellan Skarsgård appears in a small role.  I don't know if that was coincidental or not, but Netflix started recommending River to me.  And now I'm recommending it to you.

River is a drama set in modern-day London.  A dark, gritty drama that follows John River (Skarsgård) and his partner as they, well, the less you know going in, the better, I think.  I knew a tiny bit, but I hadn't been spoiled.  It's a six-part mini-series.  I think it would be difficult to tell it any quicker, a lot would be lost if it were a movie.  (In some ways, it felt like watching a Denise Mina novel.  I also got a little bit of an Awake (NBC, 2012)-vibe.)  The ending left me really satisfied and by the end, I really had only one question remaining that I didn't fully understand, but I suspect that was intentional.

I enjoyed the London setting, often at night - it was dark, rainy and gritty, so foreign. Well, not the rain part.  The only time I felt like I was taken out of it was when I spied a Subway restaurant in the background of a shot.   Man, those are everywhere.

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