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?