Steineded How sad is this?

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Leofwine_draca THE MURDER AT ROAD HILL HOUSE was an excellent non-fiction crime novel which looked at a notorious murder case which took place in 19th century Victorian England. This rather derivative ITV adaptation of the novel offers a heavily fictionalised version of the story, but in adopting all of the usual clichés of the TV detective formula, it loses something in the process.I like Paddy Considine but he can do little with his titular detective character who comes across as rather flat. The viewer is left wondering why we're supposed to care about his increasingly frustrated investigations. The rest of the staging is adequate, but the director is too obsessed with getting the details right and forgets about offering any kind of stylistic touches of his own. There's no tension here, no suspense in the telling, it's just an ordinary police procedural that you watch to see what happens. THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER almost entirely lacks the gripping, page-turning quality of the book on which it is based, so it's invariably disappointing.

jonfrum2000 I'm surprised by the generally negative reviews for this production. Some reviewers seem to want the writers to re-write history to replicate an Agatha Christie story. The fact is, this story was based on reality, not on Christie's tropes and formulas. The fact is, sometimes crimes work out as this one did, with an unsatisfying ending. The detective doesn't call all the suspects to a meeting where he reveals his genius at deduction, or cause the suspect to reveal him/herself in dramatic fashion.I found this well acted and well written. Not great, but quite good, and well worth the watching. Maybe if Captain Hastings' grandfather had showed up for comic relief, more people would have liked it. Personally, I found the straight drama well done and satisfying.

Neil Welch The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher is based on Kate Summerscale's book of the same name. This book is not a novel: rather it is a factual (and, if truth be told, rather dry) recounting of the facts of the case and everything relating to it (including the individuals involved) based on the original documentary evidence.The film concentrates on the case and doesn't tell us very much about the backgrounds of Mr Whicher, the Kent family, detection within the English police force and how it was viewed by the public, and so on. As such it, too, is a little dry, although the drama inherent in the story is augmented by performance drama.The film may disappoint because the conclusion is somewhat perfunctory and the "what happened afterwards", delivered at length on the course of a couple of lengthy chapters in the book, is here given over the space of three or four title cards.

jc-osms Based on the best-selling novel, which I've not read, this was high-end costume-drama based on a true-life child murder in the mid-Victorian era. Thus we get expensive production values in casting, sets and costumes so that the piece doesn't lack in atmosphere.What it did lack though was suspense as the to all intents forced-looking circumstantial suspicions of crack Metropolitan detective Whicher somehow turn out some five years after their initial dismissal (leading to the end of his career and descent into penury) to be true after all. This is probably why so much prominence was given to the examination of Whicher's character as he is beset by the obstructive local count police force, an unsympathetic local public, jeering local press and yet urged to "get a result" by a combination of parliamentary pressure, the local judiciary (at least initially) and his own over-confidence. Given that miscarriages of justice still occur today, often for some if not all of the same reasons as stated above, the plot has some relevance to today but is weakened by the act that Whicher's hunches largely come true. The acting was largely acceptable for TV drama if not exceptional. Somehow though, Addy Considine didn't convince me that he was as driven as his character's actions would indicate and similarly Peter Capaldi failed to bring passion to his part as the philandering father figure who recoils from the unpleasant home-truths he's forced to face.For me it was crying out for either a dramatic courtroom finale or major plot-twist and delivered neither. If that's because that's how this true-life adaptation actually played out, then fair enough, but as latter-day TV drama, I felt it missed its mark.