State of Play
Earlier this week I went to see State of Play, the Hollywood adaptation of my favorite BBC miniseries. The miniseries featured an intricately laced plot and brilliantly managed to make both journalism and politics key and interesting elements of the story (of course, the fact that the series revolves around a murder helps to spice things up). The Hollywood movie, while not abysmal, dumbed down the characters and bizarrely enough introduced an element of corniness that, at times, was severely cringe inducing.
All this is to say that if you saw the Hollywood version of State of Play and were disappointed, or if you find politics or journalism even remotely interesting you should really check out the original version made by our friends across the pond. I won’t ruin any of the spoilers for you but, suffice to say, the BBC version puts a different, and much more compelling, spin on many of the central characters (for example, Collins who in the movie is portrayed as an absolute prick—not surprising considering he’s played by Ben Affleck—is given more nuance in the miniseries where he seems to be a decent person who makes a few reprenhsible choices*). Further, the BBC version features more blood, sex and alcohol—all of course marks of quality entertainment. Definitely well worth a watch.
*To paraphrase Richard Posner, it’s much more interesting to question why good people do bad things than to wonder why bad people do bad things.