The Pursuit of Love Episode 1
So, if you’ve been here before then you’d know that I recently read ‘The Pursuit of Love’ by Nancy Mitford and now it's a BBC drama written and directed by Emily Mortimer. And I must say its great! It gave me serious Wes Anderson vibes with the captioning of crucial characters, voice overs and slick montages about the characters in play. Its fantastic. However trying to type and watch this on iPlayer is a whole other thing and we shall see how it goes.
We open with Lily James, playing Linda naked sunbathing on the roof, living her best life, let's be honest. Oh damn, there’s been a bang. Of course it's 1941 and London is the middle of the blitz. There’s a war on, you know! But we don’t see the bomb we just see a very pregnant Linda fall through the floor, much to her surprise and then she and Fanny make the slow drive back to Alconleigh.
See now we go back in time and we’re introduced to Linda and all the Radletts. Linda Radlett, I mean she is a character and a half. As we see in the montage Linda ‘she was wild and nervous creature full of passion and longing’ yeah that just about sums her up. But it looks like Lily James has her down. We meet her at 17 having decided that her life is to begin! NOW! But first its off to the ‘Hons’ Cupboard, which is where the Radlett and Fanny all gather to gossip, talk about love and sex and other what-have-yous. It's a place of safety. It where Linda and Fanny go when they find out Aunt Emily is getting married, when Linda’s sister Louisa gets married and right before Linda gets married too. And each time the cupboard gets smaller and smaller as they grow up. It's a gesture of childhood being slowly left behind. It’s sad in a way.
Now we have Uncle Mathew played by Dominic West. He’s a mental human being, but I guess you’d call him eccentric?. I love the montages of these characters. I loved the hunting of the children bit while West rides a horse yelling about how much he hates ‘Frogs, Germans, foreigners and most of all CHILDREN!’. It’s utter chaos. It’s brilliant. We see him singing badly to opera (which is ironic as he hates all foreigners- as he says ‘once a hun always a hun’) and while he sings badly he likes to crack whips on the front lawn in his pyjamas. Oh! to have a mental father like him.
Costumes are interesting, but oh damn the dresses at Louisa’s coming out ball are questionable… I feel so sorry for Louisa… but here’s the thing, Louisa’s coming out ball is a hot mess, its full of members of the House of Lords and they’re all… taking a guess? Over the age of 50. And Louisa is 18. Ew. But the evening is saved by the oh-sweet-mercifully-good-looking Andrew Scott who plays Lord Merlin. This Dandy bright young thing prancing around Louisa’s Ball with a whole host of carnival characters all dressed as Pierrot’s and Harlequins ohhh its delicious. It's scandalous. Uncle Mathew hates him, but our Louisa is ignited with a deep passion to become part of his set. Too bad she’s an idiot. But she’s a fatefully romantic creature is Linda. Love is her be all and end all. It’s her religion.
Its probably why she ends up marrying Tony, who is conceited, obnoxious and believes he knows everything. But I have to say the actor Freddie Fox, who plays him…WOW. No wonder Linda falls head over heels in love with him. I love that everybody hates him and hate that she wants to marry him. As fanny said, Lord Merlin is the only one brave enough to tell her she’s being an idiot (Bravo!) My favourite of all was Uncle Mathew’s reaction, he quite literally flipped a table when she announced her engagement to Tony. What a sight.
We end with Linda hiding in a cupboard with Fanny, terrified because she’s realised that in all her longing to be grown she has to stop being a child. And she may have just made a rather awful mistake, and this is shown on the faces of pretty much everyone she loves.. And that chaps was episode one!