A warning: those who are susceptible to throwing slippers at their TV screens should not watch Alice & Jack. And no, I didn’t consider myself among their number until I finished the second episode, but maybe this show has converted me into a footwear-flinger.
The new six-part miniseries from Channel 4 bills itself as a love story, following Alice and Jack (Andrea Riseborough and Domhnall Gleeson) over the course of 15 years as they’re drawn together and fall apart, over and over.
At least, that’s the idea – and since it’s the creation of Victor Levin (a writer on Mad Men, no less) – expectations are high. Sadly, as it turns out, way too high.
Neither of the leads are believable, or engaging, characters. The usually excellent Gleeson, so good in Ex Machina and in the Star Wars saga as the uptight General Hux, is here reduced to the human embodiment of beige.
Jack’s motivations remain a mystery throughout the two episodes available for review: he drifts aimlessly through life, and listlessly in and out of relationships, with an apathy that makes him infuriating to spend time with. Getting kicked out of Alice’s apartment in the middle of the night? Totally fine. Being ghosted by Alice, time and again? Seemingly no biggie. His marriage implodes? I mean… meh.
Riseborough doesn’t fare much better as Alice, who spends the series with a perma-facelift thanks to her unforgivingly severe ponytail hairstyle. Whereas Jack is bland, she’s more scattergun: sleeping with a different man every night, booting him out of her life on the slightest provocation, then waltzing back in to destroy his years later. An emo pixie dreamgirl, if you will.
She’s not likeable, either, which isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. Dislike is preferable to indifference, after all. Still, it remains mystifying why Jack is so obsessed with somebody so unstable and careless of his feelings. He tells his friend Paul (Sunil Patel, providing some desperately needed comic relief) that she “destroyed my life”, and confesses to wife Lynn (Aisling Bea) he thinks about Alice literally every day. Really? After two one-night stands and some text messages? Their chemistry not only leaves something to be desired, it’s DOA.
And the plot! I found myself watching with disbelief, with increasing rage, as the series unfolded. How does the show manage to criminally underuse both Aimee Lou Wood and Aisling Bea? How does Jack manage to both marry and get divorced in the space of literally one episode? Where is the show even set: Ireland or London? If it’s Dublin, where are the recognisable landmarks? And if it’s London, why is every person Jack bumps into on the street Irish?
None of it makes much sense, and all of it is underlaid by serene, tinkling piano that only serves to highlight how nonsensical it all is. One scene, which sees Alice’s father collapsing and die at her mother’s funeral, ends up tanking Jack’s marriage because a reporter arrives on the scene and interviews him about it… all while Jack’s wife Lynn (Aisling Bea) is watching on TV. Sorry, what?
Alice & Jack is less a series about the power of love and more a series about apathetic people doing things apathetically. Quite why either Gleeson or Riseborough signed up for this is a mystery, but it’s a shame: both of them are far better than this.
