The Unloved - Any one else watching it ?

[rookiemater]

I'm so disappointed, I was really looking forward to this, had read all the interviews with Samantha Morton, thought it would be a harrowing but intelligent drama.

But it's just so slow, I gave up half way through to watch a Marilyn Monroe documentary, came back and she is in a blinkin cemetery looking at a deer, now is it just me or was that already used in The Queen.

Thankfully DH will come in soon to hijack the tv for match of the day and I will be released.

I missed the beginning too, but I'm guessing that we deliberately weren't told why her mother didn't want her - the whole "story" was told through the girl's eyes, and in her eyes she didn't know why her mum rejected her

I'm still traumatised by it now - cried all the way home from school - I so wish I had the strength of character to be a foster parent.

Don't think I've been so emotionally scarred by anything on TV since watching the Roots series as a child

I wondered whether the mum wasn't allowed to look after her for some reason - not because she didn't want to.

At the meeting in the children's home Lucy asked why she couldn't stay with her mum and someone said it was up to the courts to decide.

I wonder if the dad had custody because the mum wasn't capable of looking after her or something...

was it my imagination or was there also a suggestion that Lucy was sexually abused by her dad too?

Oh, thanks, for the info. re. the mother.

She looked quite together, didn't she? With the cat and neatly decorated house.

I thought that little girl's face was just haunted.

a lot of cases like this are just neglect arent they though rahter than active abuse.

parents profess to love the kid, but not as much as they love themselves

I watched it. Totally haunted by it and cn't stop thinking about it. I too went and kissed my DD in her sleep and told her I love her.

I wanted it to have a happy ending and it didn't

Sounds really good, wish I'd watched it. I like it when drama is not too obvious and leaves the viewer to have their own opinions. We dont have enough really good quality plays/drama on telly atm.

Imagine just being ignored and 'unloved' as a small person, your spirit must wither away.

Don't Izyboy! It was horrid!

[wail]

I think about 4 million MNers would have taken her home last night and tucked her up somewhere warm and cosy.

WITH SOME CLEAN BLOODY SOCKS.

I noticed the socks.

the socks irked me.

i thought it was very slow too.it did evoke the total loneliness she felt, no matter how badly they are treated most children want to return their birth families.

It was the socks that kept making me cry actually. That no-one cared enough about her to give her a fresh pair of socks, so she just kept wearing the same old dirty ones. I'm off again now with the tears thing.

It was quite hypnotic wasn't it. She was so passive and undemanding, and people rarely even looked at her.

I also read the interview with Samantha Morton and even that was pretty traumatic, sounds like she had some dreadful experiences.

It was an amazing, powerful film. Very well done and really shocking in parts.

To answer the questions about Lucy's mum - after she met up with him at the pub her dad said her mum had wanted to have a child, but she just wasn't a kid person. And from the conversation the parents had in the cafe I assumed she'd walked out on them, or they'd split up and he had custody. Something like that.

This was an amazing piece of drama, best thing I've seen in ages. So many subtle touches - her unclean socks, the hair that continually cried out for a mothers brush, the way the mother stroked her cat but couldn't even cuddle her daughter, the ending as we watched the lonliness and isolation of the little girl on the bus.
Had me running to cuddle my kids as well. The female lead had me totally imagining how my children would be affected by being in care - really thought provoking drama.

stop it, all of you !!

wahhhhhhhhh

Oh yes, the mother stroking the bloody cat

Still upset by it now - just rang my best friend to urge her to watch it on 4OD and burst into tears

izyboy - it does!

The bit at the end where she sat on the bus just totally destroyed me.

DH mum walked out on him and his sisters when he was 10 leaving his dad to bring them up. So lots of resonance there.

some mothers dont deserve that name

it was amazing and soooooo incredibly sad and moving. I loved the use of silence and the way she hardly ever said anything, so much going on in her head but none of it able to be expressed. just wanted to take her home and cuddle her poor lamb

i agree

dissapointing. was looking forward to it after all the trailers all week. found it very very slow and not what i was expecting. wish i hadnt stayed up to watch it as im shattered today but i thought it might get better further into the film.

I thought it was brilliant although almost unbearable to watch.
It worked really well as seen through the childs eyes because she simply didn't understand and no one made any attempt to explain to her.
The meetings where she is 'attending' because they are supposed to involve and empower her were brilliant - showing how sticking a child in a room and then talking amongst yourself in jargon is a pointless and heartless excercise.
our language around child protction issues is a device that distances us from children and from the situation. the scene with the social worker ignoring the girl while she ticked the boxes was utterly brilliant with her 'if you need anything' thrown in atthe end as if she was doing anything to help that child.

I thought it was slow but deliberately so and it worked. The passivity of te girl and her hopelessness and helplessness was brilliant. And it allowed us to see how, surrounded by 'caring' and 'responsible' adults she was totally isolated and totally alone.
No made up phony plot devices.No 'ending' to give the viewer some sense that it is over. Just honest and endless and terribly hard to watch