Drone shots reveal Hollington Drive to be an ordinary suburban enclave, but residents talk about it as though it’s Shangri-La: why would anyone ever want to leave such an idyll? Theresa lives with Fraser and their respective children, self-possessed ten-year-old Ben and teenage Georgina, in a house with clean lines and a big garden, perfect for barbecues featuring lots of side-eye and social snobbery. But life among the Leon cookbooks and pulses in Kilner jars in this ITV drama is predictably not as smooth as it seems on the surface.
Anna Maxwell Martin excels at projecting unease with the merest flicker of expression. “Come outside and have some fun,” pleads Fraser (Rhashan Stone) as Theresa glumly plods around the shiny kitchen. Their guests include Theresa’s older, grander sister, Helen (Rachael Stirling) and her surly husband David, visibly unimpressed by Fraser’s boastful brother Eddie. To Helen’s consternation, Theresa and Fraser are contemplating moving somewhere more rural. “The country’s overrated,” Eddie warns them. “People are weird.” He’s not to know there are 12 sex offenders living in the vicinity of this leafy haven.
Tensions and resentments swirl while the sun shines and the steaks sizzle. Downbeat Theresa somehow manages to run a successful café business though David’s comment, “Got ourselves a real high-flyer”, doesn’t sound like a compliment. Fraser sees Helen’s constant cheerleading of her sister as patronising: “I don’t like the way you are around Helen.” Unspoken challenges tingle in the air; no wonder Georgina just eye-rolls and turns back to her phone, and the younger kids beg to be let out to play. Theresa’s shriek to Ben, vis-à-vis his cousin Eva, “Don’t lay hands on her!” seems to be about more than just instilling courtesy.
The sudden disappearance later that day of one of Ben’s classmates, a boy from a slightly lower social class, sets off a vortex of suspicion, at least in Theresa’s mind. She recalls a puzzling interaction she witnessed between Ben and Eva. Like Miles and Flora in The Turn of the Screw, they’re blandly unforthcoming and opaque. Ben sniggers at a cruel meme about the missing boy that is circulating online. Helen wafts this away as typical childish thoughtlessness but Theresa is not so sure. Fraser Holmes as Ben alternates uncannily between truculent innocence and sly secrecy.
So far writer Sophie Petzal serves a standard set-up — the mother who may be going mad or who may, conversely, be the only one to spot the truth; the child who’s either wicked, or an innocent on whom adult neuroses are projected. A sudden revelation about mother and son leaves both options available. Solid performances elevate the material, but so far the meat remains underdone.
★★★☆☆
On ITV from September 29 at 9pm
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Life is not as smooth as it seems in ITV drama Hollington Drive - Financial Times
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