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Telegraph
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Beth, review: a baffling and muddled sci-fi drama about race and IVF
Beth is Channel 4's first 'digital original drama'. What does this mean? Your guess is as good as mine. But it's being shown as a 45-minute programme on regular television and in 15-minute mini-episodes on YouTube. 'Truly groundbreaking,' says the man from Channel 4. Hmm. The thinking seems to be that young people with chronically short attention spans watch YouTube, and Channel 4 needs young people. In which case, they've made a baffling choice of subject, because does anyone under the age of 30 want to watch a stifling drama about a couple going through IVF? It's billed as a sci-fi thriller, which piques the interest a bit. Think of it as an undercooked episode of Black Mirror. Joe and Molly (Nicholas Pinnock and Abbey Lee) have been trying for a baby. They've had multiple rounds of fertility treatment and multiple miscarriages. Now at the end of the road, they're told by their doctor that there is a chance they could conceive naturally. 'Once you remove the stress and strain, miracles can happen. That's the irony with IVF,' he explains. He also puts his hand on Molly's knee in the consulting room, which we are invited to find a bit suspicious. Is there something going on between those two? When Molly does get pregnant, and the baby arrives – white and bearing no resemblance to Joe – the question hanging in the air is: who's the father? We skip from the labour room to a few years later. You may be wondering where the sci-fi element kicks in, and the answer is about five minutes from the end. The big reveal is bizarre. Until then, though, it is just a little bit odd. Molly's mother becomes unnaturally freaked out by a child's drawing. There is some business with a wall clock. As for the title, I still have no idea who Beth is. Film-maker Uzo Oleh has a background in high-end fashion photography and he has crafted something that looks beautiful, not least because Lee is a model who has appeared on the cover of Vogue. As an entry into television writing and directing, it's a promising start, but too hung up on the visuals. The tone is arty. The casting is a problem, because while the talented Pinnock acts like a regular guy invested with a full range of human emotions, Lee is at an icy remove even in scenes where she's supposed to be full of warmth. At times, as Molly and Joe wear their expensive clothes in a tasteful apartment, a couple supposedly in love but displaying about as much emotional connection as Nick Robinson and Emma Barnett on the Today programme, it reminded me of Eyes Wide Shut. It helps to watch it twice, once you've seen the twist. But when the emphasis is on the convenience of 15-minute instalments, will anybody have the time to do that?
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Beth review – like a frustratingly unfinished Black Mirror
If something is going to be small, it needs to be perfectly formed. If it's a short story, you need to be giving it Katherine Mansfield levels of welly. If you're contemplating a 90-minute adaptation of Great Expectations, you need to be David Lean. If it's a canape, it needs to be a tiny yorkshire pudding with a mini slice of roast beef tucked in and a dot of horseradish on the top. A smear of cream cheese on a cracker won't do. And if you are putting together a set of three 15-minute films as the first original drama for Channel 4's digital platform, to be shown on YouTube to try to get the youth market to pump the brakes on its handcart to hell and see what this 'art' business is all about (before it is streamed in one gobbet on your main broadcast channel), the same principle applies. It needs to be a miracle of compression, a story told without a wasted second or word. It will need to evoke much but still nail the key points and obey the narrative rules by which we make sense of any tale and through which we enjoy it. Beth is a yarn written and directed by photographer and short film-maker Uzo Oleh, about a couple who unexpectedly fall pregnant after giving up on IVF after many unsuccessful attempts. Molly (Abbey Lee) is a willowy, Scandinavian-looking blond. Her husband, Joe (Nicholas Pinnock), is Black. The longed-for baby, Imogen (later played, once we've skipped through some years, by Jemima Lown) is the image only of her mother. The doctor, Balthas (Nick Blood) who oversaw their fertility treatments is white, too, and suddenly the comforting hand he placed on Molly's knee during their last session looks like the tip of an iceberg. If you did not know from the accompanying publicity that this was a sci-fi drama you would be pretty sure where the story was heading. And in fact the couple do split up – we next see Joe coming to collect Imogen when she is about six or seven from her friend's birthday party because Molly has an appointment, and taking her back to her grandma Gabby (Louise Bangay). On his way to Molly's house to pick up the medications Gabby has left behind, Joe sees her and the doctor together in the local pub and at the house we see evidence that the two of them are living together. It is not clear if this is news to Joe – and if so, how, given that Imogen's age suggests it is unlikely to be a recent development – but whatever the case, he is provoked into opening her laptop and reading through the emails between Dr Balthas and Molly about Imogen. Again, questions abound – of the irritating, technical sort rather than a product of intrigue. Are these current emails, in which case does this couple not talk face to face about the child? Or has he seamlessly located a cache from six or seven years ago that discusses her origins? Harking back, what did tip him over into this uncharacteristic fury so long after the event? Perhaps most pressingly – why is he hung up on the suggestion of infidelity when there is a key word in most of the emails that would stop the rest of us in our tracks, suggesting as it does an event of world-changing proportions? Meanwhile, at home with Molly, grandma's own suspicions are hardening into certainty, while Molly returns home to Joe and confirms his and ours. The ending is not compressed so much as wildly rushed. The entire run time is 34 minutes (I don't know if this means the YouTube films will break even their quarter hours up to allow adverts, but God we're in an even worse state than I thought if so) and too much of this is spent depicting the couple's 'unbreakable' bond, the delight in the pregnancy and labouring the sweetness of the child (the latter with no narrative payoff at all – it's irrelevant to the reveal). I'd rather have had 30 more seconds devoted to contemplating the implications of Joe's discovery (or even explaining the email thing) and done without quite so much of Joe's brother dilating on Molly's attractiveness at a party, presumably to make the possibility of an affair with Balthas more plausible. Beth is a very stylish and confidently directed piece, with fine performances throughout – especially from Pinnock, though he also benefits from having the most to do. But the script needs to be tighter and work harder so that we aren't left feeling as if we've just watched the beginning of a Black Mirror episode. An endeavour like this should feel dense but leave you wanting more – through tantalisation and not, as here, largely through frustration. Beth is on YouTube now and on Channel 4 at 10pm on 9 June.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Beth to Fubar: the seven best shows to stream this week
This is the first original drama produced for the new Channel 4 digital platform, which will be on YouTube, alongside a broadcast on Channel 4. It packs plenty of intrigue into 45 minutes. Written by Uzo Oleh, Beth stars Nicholas Pinnock and Abbey Lee as Joe and Molly, an interracial couple longing for a child as they struggle with IVF and ponder adoption ('I want our kid to look like both of us'). Eventually, an apparent miracle happens and Imogen is born. But soon, the circumstances around her conception – and Abbey's relationship with her doctor – become mysterious. Pinnock and Lee do a sensitive job of rendering the retreating intimacies of their collapsing relationship. Channel 4, from Monday 9 June This espionage comedy drama has its cake and eats it, with daft genre tropes and knowing humour. The key to its success is Arnold Schwarzenegger as agent Luke Brunner, happily poking fun at his own legend. When we rejoin Luke's team, they're in witness protection – and a shocking early death makes the threats they face clear. But they're going up the wall, and Luke's agent daughter Emma (Monica Barbaro) is cohabiting with both an ex and her new squeeze. Fortunately, they soon have a new adversary to distract them in the shape of terrifying nihilist Dante. Plus, Carrie-Anne Moss later joins as Luke's old flame. Netflix, from Thursday 12 June In June 1994, horror was visited upon the remote tranquility of Orkney when Bangladeshi waiter Shamsuddin Mahmood was shot dead by a masked man while serving a table in the island's only curry house. This gloomy but gripping documentary explores what followed: a manhunt that would last for a remarkable 14 years (and the extraordinary events that unfolded at the trial of suspect Michael Ross); multiple issues surrounding the police's handling of the murder; racism; and the lingering impact of trauma on an isolated community. Prime Video, from Sunday 8 June Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast has become massive, second only to Joe Rogan's manosphere monster but attracting a very different audience. It's a candid exploration of sex and relationships with a strong emphasis on female empowerment. This two-part documentary expands Cooper's empire by offering a glimpse of the woman behind the mic. Like the podcast, it's rarely subtle and can feel a little stage-managed. But Cooper is a shrewd operator and this is another smartly placed building block in a growing media brand. Disney+, from Tuesday 10 June This documentary exploring the catastrophe that unfolded at Travis Scott's 2021 concert in Houston is part of the same strand as Netflix's Woodstock 99 series and covers similar ground in its depiction of systemic failure leading to tragedy. One key difference is that concertgoers now have mobile phones – and the frequently horrifying footage takes viewers right into the heart of the crush that claimed 10 lives. The story of the aftermath is bleak, too: as survivors tried to deal with the shock while coaxing some accountability from the people who failed them. Netflix, from Tuesday 10 June 'There was no way of knowing when Titan was going to fail,' says one maritime expert in this documentary, 'but it was a mathematical certainty that it would.' What drove OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush to gamble with the lives of four people (not to mention his own) in 2023? The implosion of the Titan submersible was briefly a worldwide obsession as the vessel plunged to explore the ruins of the Titanic. The story is an insight into a certain kind of entrepreneurial mindset – one that finds death easier to accept than the possibility of failure. Netflix, from Wednesday 11 June Located on the cusp of Italy and Austria, the Alpine city of Bolzano is often considered a bridge between northern and southern Europe. Its political and cultural significance is explored in this gritty crime drama. A serial killer is on the loose but he seems to be exclusively targeting German speakers. Does discerning his political motive offer a route to stopping him? Inevitably, a mismatched pair of law enforcement officers (inspector Paolo Costa and prosecutor Eva Kofler) are on the case, but can they put their personal differences aside?Channel 4, from Friday 13 June
