It's good to know that there are the quiet geniuses over in British television. Many times, they are tackling the great works of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy, to name a few, as well as the many detective stories - which beat hands down Law and Order and all those CSIs.
But, a few gritty, real-life stories are cropping up on TVO (and PBS, although those are more mysteries or dramas from historical or literary sources.)
Of note:
- An elderly man breaks his leg while climbing down the stairs from his wife's bedroom, who suffers from Alzheimer's. This feisty old man doesn't let it get him down, but is still forced to live with his son's family, and put his wife in a home.
- A family with a son who has Down's Syndrome overcompensates, with the mother acting like the perpetual martyr. It is a dramatic camping trip with his brother that finally opens the eyes of the parents that this boy/man can actually wipe his own nose, and even tie his shoe-laces.
- A husband and wife lose their only young daughter through an accident. They never really get over it, and the wife spends her time taking care of her house which is full of elderly folk, including her husband's mother. She is shocked to find out that her husband is leaving her, for another woman with two children. He says his wife is so strong, and this other woman (a battered wife, it seems) needs him more.
All three stories are about victims. Not the real victims (the dead daughter, the Down's syndrome son, the elderly father who is forced to curtail his energy and give up his wife to a home) but those who perceive themselves to be victims of these (victims') circumstances.
The elderly man is left to deflect his son's guilt-ridden, yet callous misunderstandings. The husband runs away from his wife's overbearing "strength" (neglect, really.) The martyr-mother cannot fathom how much she's hurting her family dynamics by refusing to let the grown Down's syndrome son take care of himself.
These films are a fresh twist on how benign interference (as opposed to benign neglect) can actually warp family and human relations. As though the goody-two-shoes is really someone to be mocked and not admired.
Life, as usual, metes out harsh lessons, as all these families, some to their detriment, discover.