TV Guide: Amanda Root

Video: Persuasion

Video Detective — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 06:01:01 +0000

Adapted from what is arguably Jane Austen's most mature and subtlest novel, {-Persuasion} is somewhat more nuanced and restrained than the more frequently adapted {-Emma} and {-Pride and Prejudice}. The protagonist, Anne (Amanda Root), is, by the conventions of society, considered an old maid when she remains unmarried at 27. However, a second chance arrives when her former love, Captain Wentworth (Ciaran Hinds), returns from the Napoleonic Wars. The pair, who hardly speak throughout, are surrounded by the usual assortment of family members, friends, acquaintances, and distant relations, many of them what pass for stock characters in Austen novels. There's the social-climbing parent, the dour upper aristocrat, the scatterbrained younger relatives, and, of course, the apparently suitable suitor who turns out to be all wrong. Of course, Austen's protagonists are never dumb, but Anne, being somewhat older, is also a good deal wiser, and the characters around her accordingly take on greater dimension and subtlety

Video: Anna Karenina

Video Detective — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:51:25 +0000

In 1978, America's PBS made the wise decision of running the ten-part 1977 British adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's tragic novel {-Anna Karenina}. Twenty-two years later, the Boston-based public TV station WGBH entered into another felicitous partnership with the BBC, and the result was a shorter (four-part), but no less vivid adaptation of the oft-filmed Tolstoy work. Naturally, the main emphasis was on the triangular relationship between the titular Anna (Helen McCrory), her influential older husband, Karenin (Stephen Dillane), and the handsome, but faithless Count Vronsky (Kevin McKidd), culminating in disgrace, ostracization, and finally death for the hapless heroine. This time, however, scriptwriter (Allan Cubitt) also gave plenty of air space to the fascinating subplots involving the characters of Levin (Douglas Henshall), Kitty (Paloma Baeza), Oblonsky (Mark Strong), and Dolly (Amanda Root). Filmed largely on-location in Poland (with several prominent Polish actors in the supporting cast), Anna Karenina mad

Video: Down In The Heart Of Texas

Video Detective — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:54:51 +0000

Texas-born documentary filmmaker Stephen Purvis made his feature directorial debut with this comedy-drama, loosely based on the stage production, In the West -- a series of monologues written and performed by a group of Texas actors. Purvis and his co-scripters Jesse Sublett and Tom Huckabee) gave this material a clever unifying thread by introducing two British documentary filmmakers who interview a variety of locals in Austin. Recalling the films of Nick Broomfield (Heidi Fleiss, Hollywood Madam), the duo has an assignment from the BBC. As filmmaker Robert Flaherty (Kenneth Cranham of The Boxer) -- an obvious nod to the real-life Robert Flaherty who filmed the classic Nanook of the North (1921) -- and his younger wife Kate Markham (Amanda Root of Persuasion) film the interviews, they find tensions and conflicts threatening their marriage and partnership. Original In the West cast members appear as Austin eccentrics, including a deer hunter (Lou Perryman), a wild child (Tim Mateer), a woman (C.K. McFarland)

Video: Deep In The Heart

Video Detective — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:53:50 +0000

TV Guide TV Listings

TV Guide — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:23:17 +0000

Get your local listings