Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Olive Kitteridge, TV miniseries (2014) - McDormand is sublime in Chodolenko's fine adaptation

12/28/2016

Olive Kitteridge, TV miniseries (2014) - McDormand is sublime in Chodolenko's fine adaptation

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Miniseries of the Year

+ Best Maine Title of the Year

Frances McDormand stars as Lisa Chodolenko's Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge is a 4-part HBO drama miniseries adaptation of Elizabeth Strout's (The Burgess Boys (2013)) same-titled 2008 novel, written by Jane Anderson (Mad Men (2008), TV-series) and directed by great Californian filmmaker Lisa Chodolenko (The Kids Are All Right (2010)).

Olive is a school teacher in a small Maine community, where her kind husband Henry runs a pharmacy. With very different temperaments and outlooks on life, the two raise their son and grow old together.

Chodolenko and Anderson have done a bang-up job with Strout's marvelous novel, and the miniseries format is auspiciously chosen for the piece. Olive Kitteridge makes me wonder if climates across nations might affect people in the same way. - The Maine folks here certainly remind me of Scandinavians, who come from a very similar climate and landscape.
Frances McDormand (Friends with Money (2006)) enjoys one of her career's best characters here, and she is wonderful as Olive, whom she tackles with total disregard for her own vanity. - A bold and terrific performance. Equally well-cast and spectacular is Richard Jenkins (Burn after Reading (2008)) as Henry Kitteridge. The family share several dinner scenes in the series, - but many are hilariously short, as Olive has a way of ending them prematurely, quite dictatorially.
Sentimental Henry's colleague and compassion project Denise is played with admirable grace by Zoe Kazan (What If (2013)); Brady Corbet (Force Majeure/Turist (2014)) is good as her short-time husband; Cory Michael Smith (Carol (2015)) is terrific as the mentally ill Kevin Coulson, and Bill Murray (The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)) is perfect as Jack Kennison. Besides the top notch cast, Olive Kitteridge has Carter Burwell (Carol (2015)) composing its effective score.
This is a story of life as it unfolds in Olive Kitteridge's case. There will be situations and arguments that most can relate to. The series is both funny and sad, poignant and surprising, warm and human. It moves fast in a few places, and it's few experiments with digital effects are not altogether successful. But these are minor details of a whole which is extremely recommendable, a moving snapshot of everyday life.

Related posts:

Lisa Chodolenko: 2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
The Kids Are All Right (2010) - Chodolenko's excellent indie crowdpleaser

Watch a trailer for the miniseries here

Cost: Unknown

Box office: None - TV miniseries

= Unknown

[Olive Kitteridge debuted on HBO Sunday November 2 with 559k viewers tuning in in North America for the first two episodes. The two remaining episodes were shown the following evening. Those ratings are not impressive for an HBO miniseries compared to other recent works and TV movies by them, but when taking into account that this focuses on an acclaimed but not superstar actress portraying a schoolteacher in Maine growing old, the ratings must look better. Olive Kitteridge should also have a significant life after its premiere on other platforms as a high-quality drama with universal appeal. Filming took place in Massachusetts and Maine. The miniseries was nominated for 3 Golden Globes and 13 Emmys, winning 8. Olive Kitteridge currently rests at #231 at IMDb's user-generated TV top 250 and is certified fresh at 96 % with a 8.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Olive Kitteridge?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

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Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (17-24)