Individually, Timothy Spall and Brenda Blethyn are usually worth watching. Put them together and as long as the script doesn't let them down, they should be tremendous. It doesn't and they are. This is a drama based on a true story. But it is the drama of despair, there's no feel-good factor or happy ending. This is the tale of a severely dysfunctional family that love each other, but are destroying each other. It's not quite about Asberger's syndrome, nor about mental illness, Lisa's condition remains undiagnosed. It's more about how a family with problems can fall through the cracks between the different agencies set up to care for just such a situation. Bill and Wendy have been coping with their daughter for years. But her demands drive them to attempting suicide. It's only then that the mental health and social services agencies realise that there's a problem. But the reason for Lisa's behaviour appears to be partly due to the way her parents are treating her. Rebekah Staton is definitely one to watch.
7 Reviews
Not about Asperger's, not easy to watch, but essential viewing.
lrrooster200218 November 2006
Whilst the film 'Rainman' and Mark Haddon's book are both primarily works of fiction, this film is a dramatisation of a true story that, at the time of writing, is still going on.
The fact that psychiatrists and social workers seemed flummoxed is the centre of this tragic tale. Without a proper diagnosis - a label - Lisa and her family receive little help. This is not about Asperger's. The medical teams decided it was not 'just' Asperger's, but they couldn't decide what it was and this condemned the family to the life they had and which the film tried to portray.
Rebekah Staton was very good as Lisa. If she seemed detestable then that is the point. Difficult to love her, but still unconditionally loved by her mother in the only way she knew how. Difficult for her to show love, but she did in her own way by demonstrating an overpowering need for her mother to be around, to 'look after her' and not to 'spoil her day'.
It's not an easy film to watch. Life is not easy sometimes. I thought it was well done. I don't like 'wobblevision' but its use when Lisa was being sectioned highlighted her panic, fear and confusion. The stark quality of the film was enhanced by the brave decision of the producers not to have incidental music, so well done to them! I don't think the point of the film was to help anyone associated with Asperger's. If there was a point in showing this story at all, maybe it was that we can't help those we can't label and that we should open our minds to understanding people when they are in distress, for whatever reason and however unpalatable.
The fact that psychiatrists and social workers seemed flummoxed is the centre of this tragic tale. Without a proper diagnosis - a label - Lisa and her family receive little help. This is not about Asperger's. The medical teams decided it was not 'just' Asperger's, but they couldn't decide what it was and this condemned the family to the life they had and which the film tried to portray.
Rebekah Staton was very good as Lisa. If she seemed detestable then that is the point. Difficult to love her, but still unconditionally loved by her mother in the only way she knew how. Difficult for her to show love, but she did in her own way by demonstrating an overpowering need for her mother to be around, to 'look after her' and not to 'spoil her day'.
It's not an easy film to watch. Life is not easy sometimes. I thought it was well done. I don't like 'wobblevision' but its use when Lisa was being sectioned highlighted her panic, fear and confusion. The stark quality of the film was enhanced by the brave decision of the producers not to have incidental music, so well done to them! I don't think the point of the film was to help anyone associated with Asperger's. If there was a point in showing this story at all, maybe it was that we can't help those we can't label and that we should open our minds to understanding people when they are in distress, for whatever reason and however unpalatable.
Powerful drama with Oscar worthy performances
fish-2531 October 2006
This was an outstanding drama which depicted how life was for the Ainscows, a family living with their daughter's condition which they found difficult to have diagnosed by medical and mental health professionals.
The story was written based on the accounts of Mrs Ainscow, (played by Brenda Blenthyn). And while it's gritty portrayal of Lisa may not leave you full of empathy for her as the user above has stated, I don't believe that is the responsibility of the drama. It does however display the real life difficulty the family faced and what led Mr and Mrs Ainscow to do what they felt they had to.
The performances were excellent by the three lead characters, Brenda Blethyn gave a performance reminiscent of her turn as Cynthia Purley in Secrets and Lies and Rebehak Staton is an actress to watch for in the future.
While at times harrowing to watch it was truly gripping and one of the best things on TV for a long time.
The story was written based on the accounts of Mrs Ainscow, (played by Brenda Blenthyn). And while it's gritty portrayal of Lisa may not leave you full of empathy for her as the user above has stated, I don't believe that is the responsibility of the drama. It does however display the real life difficulty the family faced and what led Mr and Mrs Ainscow to do what they felt they had to.
The performances were excellent by the three lead characters, Brenda Blethyn gave a performance reminiscent of her turn as Cynthia Purley in Secrets and Lies and Rebehak Staton is an actress to watch for in the future.
While at times harrowing to watch it was truly gripping and one of the best things on TV for a long time.
How to hate Asberger's!
brice-1830 October 2006
The film 'Rainman' and Mark Haddon's book 'The Curious Incident of the Dog - ' helped one empathise with people with Asperger's Syndrome, but this high profile TV film made Lisa, the 32-year old daughter of middle-aged parents (played by Timothy Spall, at his glummest, and Brenda Blethyn, at her most irksome) a manipulative monster. Her parents are driven to joint suicide attempts twice by her impossible demands, and at the second attempt her father successfully removes himself from the scene, leaving her mother to continue to collude with her insatiable child. As usual, psychiatry and social services are made to seem flummoxed (though it's refreshing when a Birmingham Social Worker finally confronts Lisa with reality). Rebekah Staton may well be brilliant as Lisa - I can't tell because I found her so detestable! How on earth could this film help anyone associated with this distressing disorder?
spoilt brat
mikgee-5926111 February 2023
Here we have a film about a spoiled fat girl who loses her temper if she doesn't get everything she wants. Here mother is a teacher and spends all her money on buying the little fatso hundreds of pairs of shoes and the best food money can buy.they send her to social services but she gets out on technicality that she is not insane nor a risk to society. She hates daddy who has been sent to prison for fraud to pay for her expensive shoe collection and fine dining.little fatty knows that she only has to throw a tantrum to get whatever she wants. Basically a child that has never had any discipline in her life.now the hysterical part where mummy and daddy decide to go ro Spain take lots of tablets and walk into the sea LOL daddy dies but mummy survives and now fatty has her all to herself ALL THE SPOILED BRAT NEEDED WAS A GOOD SLAP!
Is Aspergers the new Schizophrenia?
annajennym31 October 2006
Warning: Spoilers
R.D. Laing in his books exposed the massive influence of dysfunctional families in creating schizophrenia. The same analysis could be done in this film of how the family creates Lisa's disorder...
I only hope that Lisa can read Laing, as no-one in the film was really offering her this perspective and it could help. Yes, she has been hysterical and shown no care for her parents at times, but this bad behaviour looks like part of a cycle ... after all, her mother's equally desperate approach to life is when she suggests seriously that the way out is a suicide pact for the whole family. Deeply scary and so sad.
Neither mother nor daughter is helping the other to live and it's hard to take sides as to where the fault lies, but I think - if they wanted to live - someone would have to help each of them to entangle the deathly games they are embroiled in. They are toxic for each other!
I only hope that Lisa can read Laing, as no-one in the film was really offering her this perspective and it could help. Yes, she has been hysterical and shown no care for her parents at times, but this bad behaviour looks like part of a cycle ... after all, her mother's equally desperate approach to life is when she suggests seriously that the way out is a suicide pact for the whole family. Deeply scary and so sad.
Neither mother nor daughter is helping the other to live and it's hard to take sides as to where the fault lies, but I think - if they wanted to live - someone would have to help each of them to entangle the deathly games they are embroiled in. They are toxic for each other!
(SPOILERS) Very basic drama that tells you less than the newspaper articles
bob the moo11 December 2006
Warning: Spoilers
Bill and Wendy Ainscow are a middle class couple living in Birmingham. One night they both take an overdose of sleeping tablets but are unsuccessful in their joint suicide attempt and wake up in hospital. The reason for their desperation is their 32 year old daughter Lisa. Lisa has a form of Asberger's that means she has to shop, fears germs, loves shoes and hates her father. Bill has been stealing from his post office to try and fund his daughter's habits and has been given a custodial sentence, leaving Wendy to cope on her own.
I was interested in seeing this film because I had read about this story in the papers well, a few articles following the suicide of Bill. Sadly though it seems that the writers here have also only the newspapers to go off, or at least their only aims seem to have been to deliver the story at the level of the papers. I say this because the film starts with the basic pointers and doesn't really go beyond them. Bill is at the bottom of his pit; Wendy is weak willed and Lisa is manipulative. This is where we start and more or less this is where we end. The film delivers obvious emotions in the way one would expect from an ITV Sunday night drama and it is lazy and rather dull.
I waited for the script to do something more interesting with the characters and develop their pain into the realm of being real but I waited in vain. Nothing really came beyond the basic stance we started with and it was not long before I was bored of the constant, samey emotion from the characters. Spall sets his autopilot for "glum" and just stays there. He is never a real person and his performance is weak. Blethyn is not so poor but she has little more to work with in regards the material so she just keeps doing the same thing over and over in the hope that it will be good enough and, in fairness, it is all the material seems to want from her. Staton is more lively although her character is so poorly written that who knows what to think of her; she does well in regards emotion but she comes across as manipulative and lazy rather than sick which I suppose is part of the mystery but doesn't help matters.
Overall then a very basic Sunday night ITV drama based on a true story that manages to be worthless for those of us who read the short articles surrounding the story. The basic building blocks are put in place but not built on and instead we just sit and stare at them without any insight or commentary. The cast are so-so because the script leaves them with nowhere to go or nothing to explore and the whole thing just gets by on the tragic emotion of the situation which might be enough for some viewers but not for me.
I was interested in seeing this film because I had read about this story in the papers well, a few articles following the suicide of Bill. Sadly though it seems that the writers here have also only the newspapers to go off, or at least their only aims seem to have been to deliver the story at the level of the papers. I say this because the film starts with the basic pointers and doesn't really go beyond them. Bill is at the bottom of his pit; Wendy is weak willed and Lisa is manipulative. This is where we start and more or less this is where we end. The film delivers obvious emotions in the way one would expect from an ITV Sunday night drama and it is lazy and rather dull.
I waited for the script to do something more interesting with the characters and develop their pain into the realm of being real but I waited in vain. Nothing really came beyond the basic stance we started with and it was not long before I was bored of the constant, samey emotion from the characters. Spall sets his autopilot for "glum" and just stays there. He is never a real person and his performance is weak. Blethyn is not so poor but she has little more to work with in regards the material so she just keeps doing the same thing over and over in the hope that it will be good enough and, in fairness, it is all the material seems to want from her. Staton is more lively although her character is so poorly written that who knows what to think of her; she does well in regards emotion but she comes across as manipulative and lazy rather than sick which I suppose is part of the mystery but doesn't help matters.
Overall then a very basic Sunday night ITV drama based on a true story that manages to be worthless for those of us who read the short articles surrounding the story. The basic building blocks are put in place but not built on and instead we just sit and stare at them without any insight or commentary. The cast are so-so because the script leaves them with nowhere to go or nothing to explore and the whole thing just gets by on the tragic emotion of the situation which might be enough for some viewers but not for me.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
