War and Peace, episode 2

[shallowness]

I most definitely felt that there was a lot of abridging of the novel going on, with little blocks of scenes for separate storylines and the sense that Davies had picked the dramatic high points (and the titles letting us know where we were were so random and sporadic, you almost wished they hadn’t bothered.) All the chanting/wailing on the soundtrack got on my wick, this time around, but the production design was great and rich Russians’ pillowcases are gorgeous. Who knew?

Pierre found out that conjugal life was not the bliss he’d imagined. I don’t think he quite knew he was being played all the time that he was, but when he found out he was being cuckolded (by whom? I didn’t recognise the voice. What was their motivation?) he looked like a kicked puppy about it. The line where he admitted he’d been wrong about Napoleon was a return of the social clunker of the first episode. He seems to have found a spine and um, Athos won’t have Porthos, Aramis or D’Artagnan to back him up in the duel, but my advice would be to lay off the booze.

Prince Cheekbones of the Deathwish, hereafter Andrei as I’ve absorbed what his first name is, didn’t respect the Austrians. Understandable. His boss, General Old-Timer was right, the Czar and all his generals were wrong. I never believed Andrei was going to die (trailer spoilage), and while the Napoleonic wars were tough, childbirth has claimed more lives (also trailer spoilage that his wife would die). Andrei was slightly more sympathetic in this episode, from being on the moral high ground, looking down at Nikolai, to doing something useful on the battlefield and gaining some perspective.

But Marya was the best. Their mother must have been nice, because although you can see their father’s big heart beneath it all (so glad they got Broadbent), he handles fraught situations quite badly. The ‘You are plain, but here’s a hottie, decide on your future in a day’ plotline could have done with more space. Anatole really was an idiot, all he needed was a little self-restraint and he’d have been roubles in. His sister got all the brains. However, I seem to care about Masha (not so much practically everybody else). The actress has a little of the look of Elaine Cassidy about her.

I wish someone would find a look for Marya between dolled up frivolity with a silly ribbon and the austere look she generally has, but the woollen shawl she wore at the end was lovely. Sorry, maybe I want a fic where she goes to Moscow, meets Natasha and she sorts out her wardrobe.

Speaking of wardrobes, that lacy head thing Helene wore before going out one time – she seriously wasn’t going to wear that outside? On the other hand, the bridal gown and the red gown reiterated the Tuppence Middleton Should Always Be a Brunette argument.

More seriously (ha!), the French companion is a floozy, not a spy. Could have done with a scene between her and Marya, because you’d have thought she’d have been dismissed/sent away after all that – there must be a scene of Marya deciding to forgive her in the book. However, she did help out at the birth.

Props to the lady playing Marya’s maid for giving the character life. You knew she knew what was going on always (and the background acting is decent throughout – in the first scene at Natasha’s house, her little brother is playing soldiers, which is perfect for the time and themes.)

Natasha is still the darling child of her family’s bosom, obsessing over love – mainly in the form of Sonya/Nikolai (and Lily James had more to do as Rose in Downton because there was more going on with her). Nikolai is a braggart, still not having learned from war, not even after his second battle, I think. I was going to put it down to immaturity, but given his father’s belief in Russian soldiers being great...because they’re Russian, not facts, I think it was Tolstoy Making A Point about Russian society.

Napoleon had to speak English (well, Russian in the orginal presumably) – ha! The choice to have the wedding vows in Russian and writing in Cyrillic was...interesting.

So, the money is still up there on the screen. Some of the points about the society’s blindness to its faults are seeping through, but in terms of the episode’s flow, I felt it was hampered by the adaptation cramming in what it needed to make sense of it all, and yes, the big dramatic moments, without letting them breathe or interact in a more organic sense.

PS Stephen Rea’s performance is delicious.