CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: It was another day for poor Ursula, this time in Life After Life.

life after life

Evaluation:

Zero + crosses

Evaluation:

Not long ago, every lady in the celluloid world wore straw hats and acres of petticoats.

Today we call that sunny and innocent age the “eighties”. The one-of-a-kind British movie based on Edwardian novels that was legally supposed to play Maggie Smith and Denholm Elliott monopolized the Oscars.

life after life (BBC2) is not based on a book by EM Forster or Edith Wharton, but on a recent bestseller by Kate Atkinson.

But at first glance, it fits perfectly into this kind of Merchant-Ivory movie, with tales of coming-of-age stuffed by hot-tempered doctors, annoying older brothers, and waitresses with country accents.

Then you look again and you see something much darker below the surface. Everything about Life After Life is richly layered like a poem, and new meanings emerge as the story falls apart.

Even the title of this psychological thriller about reincarnation and déjà vu has a double resonance: it’s a pun about ‘life after death’ but also sums up the plot as Ursula is paralyzed and daydreaming, dying and beginning her existence. .

Last week’s opening episode took him through the many fatal disasters of his childhood. This time she survived adulthood (except in a car accident), but her life gets more dangerous as she gets older.

Sian Clifford as Sylvie and Eliza Riley as young Ursula in Life After Life. Sarah Vine says it’s the kind of literary TV adaptation the BBC is still doing very well

New Zealand-born Thomasin McKenzie, who has played Ursula since she was 16, captures her heartbreaking combination of self-confidence and cynicism.

He knows from past experiences that he only remembers in dreams that the world can be a terrible place. † † but he has no idea what to do about it.

A scene in which she was accidentally raped in her home by an American guest was terrifyingly believable.

“You English girls are something,” the attacker grinned as he turned, confident that he had somehow provoked the attack. Ursula is an introverted girl and although Life After Life revolves around her, she doesn’t have many rules.

McKenzie needs no dialogue – her face and gestures spilled emotions as she contemplated suicide and subsequently had an illegal abortion.

Hearing another death while lying in his hospital bed, he welcomed him with joy.

The ash-like snowflakes that herald the end of one life and the beginning of another were once again a breath of fresh air for us.

Then we realized that this time she wouldn’t die because no matter how terrible the rape was, she could do nothing to change it or prevent it.

Pictured: Masali Baduza, left, and Jack Rowan, right, at a glance at Noughts + Crosses

It lacks the subtle complexities that make Life After Life so moving. Zero + crosses (BBC1).

This is a four-part drama based on a novel about young lives stranded in a violent world. But this is where the similarities end.

The tale Baduza and Jack Rowan play Sephy and Callum, the hapless lovers on the run. His father (Paterson Joseph) is prime minister in Britain’s apartheid region, where blacks rule and white workers are an exploited underclass.

There is another sharp distinction between adults (greedy, soulless, patriarchal and condescending) and adolescents (misunderstood, visionary, motivated by love and kindness).

Joseph is a successful actor and is doing his best in this shot, but it’s hopeless. All he can do is bark orders to his machine gun carrying his accomplices.

The police eventually caught him and opened fire, but Callum and Sephy hid in a wooden box. The bullets just bounced, so that was fine.

Noughts + Crosses has some nice skins, but that’s all you can say about it.