Beth review – like a frustratingly unfinished Black Mirror
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.
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BBC News
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