David O'ConnellPrime Suspect
September 20th 2010 06:54
Lynda La Plante’s Prime Suspect (1991) was considered groundbreaking British television for its time. As well as elevating Helen Mirren from the realm of arthouse cinema to the loungerooms of an audience of millions looking for a fresh crime fix, it provided insights into the grisly work, lives and investigation of serial killers which would soon become a worldwide fascination. Fast forward twenty years and little has changed.
The English police force of 1991 is depicted as a strictly male domain in which women of authority are as rare as hens' teeth. In bleak conditions a young prostitute is found murdered. When the lead detective on the case, DCI Shefford (John Forgeham) suffers a fatal heart attack, DS Jane Tennison (Mirren), frustrated by the glaring lack of career opportunities afforded her, offers to fill the breach and lead the investigation. She encounters firm resistance from her superiors and sexist mockery of the ugliest sort from the other officers, who clearly consider the notion of subordinancy to a female absurd and an affront to their masculinity. Reluctantly Tennison is handed the reins.
Soon one suspect materialises in their sights – George Marlowe (John Bowe) - and all efforts become attuned to tracing every thread of his history and placing under the microscope every minute detail of his existence to provide consolidating links to the crime. Efforts are redoubled again when a second young woman is found murdered.
Despite its fundamentally sound execution, Prime Suspect appears to have dated a little, and in ways beyond the fashion and décor of its time. As directed by experienced TV vet Christopher Menaul, it perhaps lacks the slickness of today’s familiar offerings, though a set of attributes more in tune with the 90’s are still to be savoured for their own virtues, including a refusal to marry the narrative with outlandish sensationalism. In other words, despite its flaws Prime Suspect remains solid, and in parts, genuinely gripping drama bolstered by a strong array of performances across the board.
The subject matter is grim and handled with a suitably dour seriousness. La Plante’s well-balanced teleplay does an excellent job at depicting the interior life of Marlowe and his loyal wife, Moyra (Zoe Wanamaker). They earn our empathy as fully-formed creations who may just be suffering the indignity of a misdirected police crusade to nail a charge on the most convenient suspect available.
There’s no doubt Mirren does a superlative job at creating a driven woman with the audacity to stand up to a male-dominant hierarchy and impose her will – not only to carve a career path but to underline her own estimation of what she’s capable of achieving. She stares down the initial hatred and despise of the men under her command and through sheer determination wins them over. Shefford’s best mate DS Bill Otley (Tom Bell) provides the staunchest opposition but he too will grudgingly clear a path for her by investigation’s end.
Less effective is the portrayal of Tennison’s faltering domestic life in which, predictably, her increased work load places an undue burden on her relationship with partner Peter (Tom Wilkinson). These bridging scenes seem predisposed to spelling out all the old clichés of vocational and personal lives becoming dangerously unbalanced and detrimental to the other. Only one can survive the strain of new boundaries and there’s no prizes for guessing which will suffer most damage.
It’s not an easy task to sustain interest under these circumstances with the field of candidates trimmed down to one. Copious work is poured into proving his guilt beyond doubt. Throughout, part of you is wondering, is Marlowe just a devious red herring? If not, the series' entire focus must become the procedural aspects of detection, analysis and prevention - a methodology that has proven to be the strong suit of both good and bad crime, in novels, TV and film ever since, from the first 87th Precinct novels of Ed McBain in the 1950’s to the tedium-inducing C.S.I. franchises saturating our small screens today.
Viewed out of context Prime Suspect isn’t quite the mesmerising television some will remember it as, but it’s a much-loved, instantly recognisable landmark of TV drama nonetheless. It was also a fine showcase for Mirren in a role that would consume six further installments spanning the next fifteen years and is still inextricably linked to her name.
It’s fun to note a young, unnaturally pale Ralph Fiennes in a very minor - and his first ever acting - role here as a boyfriend of one of the murdered women, just two years before his discovery and casting by Steven Spielberg for Schindler’s List.
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Still much better than The Bill which bored me to tears.
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