Occasionally a work comes along whose mood is so unique and so vividly communicated that it can't be forgotten. This is one of those. The feeling in it that clutches at one right away is that of desperation. I don't know of another work in any medium that conveys it so intensely as this does in the opening scenes of Bob Hoskins's character trying, and failing, to get it across to his thunderingly oblivious wife. He wants so little and he can't get it, can't understand it, can't even express it except that it's what's in the songs he sells. He's troubled by his sexual desires, is perhaps even more troubled by his glimmers of spiritual yearning, in his feelings for the blind girl, and is too simple to sort it all out. The woman who's able to take him out of it, for a brief space anyhow, amazingly embodies everything that the songs promised but that he never hoped to see realized, and his gratified delight, blooming unexpectedly out of his life of despair, is very inspiring--ironically so since his behavior toward her has been shameful and her behavior worse, by conventional standards, and will become worse still, to the point that he finds himself embroiled in a lot more than he bargained for. "Why?" he asks; "Because I felt like it," she says, and he sees her point: never before were they been able to do what they felt like, and this is it, for better or worse. It's his way out, if it is a way out; the story is profoundly, irresolvably ambiguous about it, to the last minute. Was he--are we--damned from the outset? Asked where things went wrong, he says the day he was born. Or are we saved from the outset? The story says we couldn't go through all this without a happy ending--just like the songs. Is what they have to offer a fantasy, or a glimpse of the only thing worth holding on to? All this is just a tiny fraction of all that could be said about the series. Dennis Potter never did anything like as good again (and neither has anyone else); Bob Hoskins and Cheryl Campbell gave the performances of their careers, in roles most actors would die for. Every part was a great part; every scene was something that had never been seen before. There are faults, too, but they only point up what an amazing achievement this was. (To its admirers the film version must seem catastrophic.) And when it isn't sad, very funny. This is the best television I ever expect to see.
Review of Pennies from Heaven
