What is it? Restless, miniseries that first aired on BBC One, two episodes on one disc from Acorn Media
How much? $34.99
When? Now
Who's restless, exactly? Sally Gilmartin (Charlotte Rampling). She's a widow, living a quiet, unassuming life in the English countryside. But now she's certain that there are people watching her and that her life is in danger.
That's alarming news to her daughter, Ruth (Michelle Dockery), who sees this as a sign her aging mother is losing her grip on reality. But there are more shocking revelations to come as Sally starts to tell Ruth a remarkable story that shows that Sally's fears aren't rooted in baseless paranoia.
It turns out Sally Gilmartin is really Eva Delectorskaya (Hayley Atwell), a Russian emigre who was living in Paris before the outbreak of World War II. After a family tragedy, she was recruited by the British Secret Service to act as an agent assisting in a campaign of disinformation against the Nazis.
She excelled in her training, went to work in Belgium and the United States, and fell in love with her handler, the mysterious and ruthless Lucas Romer (Rufus Sewell). But her tasks became more complicated and more distasteful, and eventually things began to fall apart. She was betrayed and only stayed alive by relying on her spy skills and "disappearing."
It's now the 1970s and Sally fears that her past has finally caught up with her. She needs Ruth's help to find Romer (Michael Gambon) and put an end to the spy game once and for all.
How is it? Quite good, really. The story moves along at a nice clip. While the series jumps back and forth between the 1970s and the 1930s and '40s, it's the war years that have the most meat to them and get the most time. The suspense and tension increase as the story moves along and it does a nice job of holding viewers' interest.
The acting is strong, particularly from Rampling, Atwell and Dockery and the characters are all either likable or effectively mysterious.
Disinformation campaigns (planting fake news stories to fight the Germans) aren't a part of spycraft that get a lot of play in spy stories so it's fun to see it examined, even superficially, here.
Extras? Just a photo gallery.
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Next week: Da Vinci's Demons, Season 3; Doctor Who, Season 9, Part 2; Downton Abbey, Season 6; The Facts of Life, Season 8.
Style on 01/17/2016