"MISTRESSES"
DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: ***1/2 (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: ** (out of 5 stars) STARRING Sarah Parish as KATIE RODEN Sharon Small as TRUDI MALLOY Orla Brady as SIOBHAN DILLON Shelley Conn as JESSICA Raza Jaffrey as HARI Patrick Baladi as RICHARD Adam Rayner as DOMINIC MONTGOMERY Not Rated Available on DVD June 9 Official BBC America Shop site Studio: BBC America Back to DVD Review Home |  |
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
Four British women are friends with very different backgrounds, but all facing challenges in career and love. Katie (Sarah Parish) is a doctor who had an affair with a patient and now faces the advances of his son. Trudi (Sharon Small) is a 9/11 widow struggling to raise her two daughters with a single-father suitor. Siobhan (Orla Brady) is a high-powered lawyer trying to conceive with her husband but finding that she has a wandering eye. Jessica (Shelley Conn) is a modern career girl who bounces from fling to fling, experimenting with lesbianism and open relationships.
WHAT I LIKED
“Mistresses” has been compared to the American hit “Sex and the City,” and I suppose that is very accurate. However, where “Sex and the City” relies on glitz, glamour and shocking situations, “Mistresses” is far more character driven. It explores a more realistic view of female sexuality at many different stages, and like good BBC dramas, it sucks you into the characters’ lives.
There’s a certain naughtiness that you might feel in watching this movie, partly because the female characters are simultaneously repressed and wanton. Plus, the eye candy doesn’t hurt. Sure, Shelley Conn sizzles as the loose vixen, but the other girls can turn it on as well. Sarah Parish and Sharon Small appear as the more mature women who still have a sexual appetite. And Orla Brady (who coincidentally is the oldest actress of the bunch but hardly looks it) exhibits the most male-oriented behavior, detaching sex and love.
“Sex and the City” might be higher profile, but “Mistresses” is a better quality story. Sure, it still has over-the-top situations, and the characters just can’t seem to settle on a relationship throughout the two short seasons presented in this set. However, viewers should be able to find something in their personalities that they can relate to.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
Someone used to watching American television – especially in concentrated TV-on-DVD form – might get a little irritated at how fast these characters bounce from relationship to relationship. However, one should remember that these twelve episodes comprise two whole seasons of television (in the traditional six-episode runs, for which the BBC is known). If watched on the air, things seem a lot more realistic from a time-frame perspective.
Still, the women in this show are destined to be perpetually miserable as they can’t settle on a proper, healthy relationship. However, I don’t think there’s too many women patterning their lives after these ladies and idolizing them like some seem to do with the “Sex and the City” girls.
DVD FEATURES
In addition to the two full seasons, this four-disc set includes cast interviews and a half-hour making-of documentary about the first season of the show. The final disc also includes a featurette called “Sex, Lies & Infidelity,” which has the girls from the show (and the guys too, tagged on at the end) interviewed about their characters and the state of sexual affairs in the world today.
WHO’S GOING TO LIKE THIS MOVIE
People who’d like to see a British version of modern girls with sexual appetites.
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