Elizabeth is Missing

[longwayoff]

Excellent and very sad production. Glenda Jackson is superb.

Glenda Jackson - bafta. Imho.

I loved it. It made me incredibly sad, but it was outstanding.

Glenda Jackson at 83. What an actor.

I thought the husband had murdered Elizabeth. Even if she forgot, why didn’t they just take her to the hospital all along?

Glenda was amazing. BAFTA worthy.
I think the reason we don’t know about Elizabeth is part of the plot, if we knew she was in hospital
It wouldn’t have been so effective - we were in Maud’s shoes more than anyone else’s.,

Shiny. That's why I couldn't follow it. I thought that they all thought she was deteriorating, but then would be proved right in the end.

I thought the husband had murdered Elizabeth. Even if she forgot, why didn’t they just take her to the hospital all along? They probably thought it would be too upsetting.

Frank murdered his wife Sukey and buried her in the garden where they were building the new houses, one of which they were planning to buy. Very deep hole - usually you hear of bodies being in a "shallow grave'. And not much soil came out of it.

I was muddled about the dress - ie when she was last seen, at the bandstand, she was wearing the blue dress and lovely blue silk shoes - quite possibly the same shoes as the buckle found in the garden. Yet the dress was in the suitcase. There was a suggestion that she made Maud a similar dress.

But bandstand couldn't have been the last sighting, because family were sitting around with fish and chips waiting for Sukey, and she was murdered in the room with the stuffed birds and the fireplace - not likely if family were in the next room eating fish and chips.

How may plot holes were deliberate, to illuminate dementia, and how many were accidental?

why didn’t they just take her to the hospital all along?

Because the son wouldn’t allow it.

It's not often that I find a film or TV production of a good book to be equal to the task - this was an exception. Brilliantly acted by all and sensitively translated from page to screen.

I wasn't sure of the significance of the letter young maud was reading?

The book was far better, and the big reveal about her sister was much more shocking.
But, I did think it got across the scariness of living with a disease like dementia. Looks terriying, from both sides.

Outstanding production. So glad Glenda Jackson is back and still a superb actress. This deserves to win a bunch of awards.

Loved the book and beyond measure, Glenda Jackson was a tour de force, not really a criticism but for me the book won the day

Thanks all for explaining why Maude wasn’t taken to visit Elizabeth sooner. @Mere i’d Forgotten there were two different women involved (sleepy😴).

Came across this by chance this evening so watched it from the start on iPlayer. Absolutely brilliant portrayal of dementia. Was in tears when Maud and her daughter were at the bus stop and she forgot who she was. You could just see the absolute exhaustion in her daughters face, must be such a hard illness to have to deal with. Glenda played it brilliantly.

It was a fantastic adaptation. I was so glad it was done as a "one off" and not in 2 or 3 parts. I thought it was very faithful to the book and Glenda Jackson was just superb.

Tough to watch, and a bit slow at times, but a very clever portrayal of the nightmare of dementia. Struck a real chord with me, because my DF lost his mind to this awful disease. When DM died, DF was told the news but kept forgetting it. He was taken to her funeral (against advice of the care home manager, and against my wishes, as I knew it would be traumatic for him, and he would later not remember going). One week later he asked me "How's your mother?" And so on, every time I visited him, for the next few months until he died. Hard to believe that a man could not remember that his wife of 60 years was dead, but his brain just couldn't store new memories.

Glenda Jackson's performance was totally believable, and the rest of the cast were good too.

Wonderful adaptation. Glenda Jackson had obviously put a huge amount of work into the portrayal of someone with progressive dementia. Her gait, posture and facial expressions were so accurate. I was in tears at several points. The book spends much longer on her recollections of Suki and I think the adaptation was missing here but as other posters have said it was great to see it all in one go rather as a two or three parter.
My teenage dds stayed to watch after His Dark Materials and this is something they would usually walk out on to return to YouTube but they were glued and asked lots of questions afterwards.
Well done BBC.
to all posters who have lived or are living through this in real life. Dementia is truly awful.

@MereDintofPandiculation I think Suki was not living with her family. She was Mrs Suki Jeffers married to the guy who owned the business. The room with the birds was not in the family home.
I definitely want to read the book again now.
Acting from all was superb.

Yes, it was in the shop. She and her husband lived in the family home was my understanding - it wasn't unusual for couples to start married life living with parents.

I thought it was great. DP wasn't keen when I read the description to him, but also watched the whole thing and said how good it was. Very moving. In the book had Maud suppressed the knowledge of what happened to Suki?

There are no plot holes. Any apparent gaps help illustrate the deterioration of normal function as dementia progresses and reason fragments. Can't praise this highly enough, script, cast, production. Worth licence fee for this alone.

Glenda Jackson was mesmerising.
Absolutely fantastic

Love Glenda Jackson, good to see her again, @Womenwotlunch, and you've reminded me, she still has "beauty like what I have got".

Don't think Sukie and her husband were living in the family home, that wouldn't make sense for a murder to take place there. The lodger was living in Sukie's old room, I assumed.

I think Maud said Suki had made Maud a dress the same as hers.

I agree with others. It was excellent and a brilliant performance from Glenda Jackson. It reminded me of an occasion a few years ago involving my husband's aunt who had dementia.

The aunt, who lived opposite his mother (aunt's sister), phoned us one evening a few years ago to say that his mother had collapsed and been taken to hospital. They'd both have been in their 80s at the time. We live 2.5 hours away. We phoned the hospital who had no record of her, phoned his mother, who didn't answer, and then phoned back the aunt. She was very sure about the collapse and the hospital so we asked her to go over the road to check.

We phoned her back 5 minutes later, and she couldn't remember why we were phoning and couldn't remember whether she'd been over the road or not, but she was adamant that her sister had been taken to hospital. We phoned the hospital again (only one in the area) who said no. We asked the aunt to go over the road again and said we'd phone her there. Aunt kept saying 'but she's in the hospital' and was very upset when we kept asking if she was sure.

We eventually phoned the hospital again and asked to be put through directly to A&E. They said that his mother had been brought in a few hours previously. She'd been transferred to a ward and clearly no one had yet entered her details on the computer.

I was furious with the hospital and felt so awful about not having trusted his aunt. I can only imagine how frustrated she must have been, telling us the truth and not being believed.