Customer Reviews

Sensitive Skin - The Complete Seasons 1 and 2

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this dvd series because I so enjoyed Joanna Lumley in AbFab and wanted to see more of her work. Two things struck me about this BBC series: First, this is a realistic telling of what it is like to be in your 60's today. We were "the me generation," it is hard to believe we are in our 60's now--we were important, we set the rules, we partied and we thought we'd go on forever. We still think of ourselves that way. Being 60 today is not like when my Grandmother turned 60. We still drive sports cars, bikes, hike, party, drink, some do drugs, and have sex. Seeing flirting and sexual appetites still strong in people in their 60's is common today--just you wait! The Second thing, I felt was that I really knew these people. Joanna's character's discussions with her halucinatory visitors is typical of someone who is trying to come to terms with getting older. How does it affect me, and how should it affect me? What are the boundaries? How should I be living my life now and how should I represent that. It's totally weird to realize that if you are still waiting for things to happen to you, you have missed most of your life! Mr. Blick, who is writer, director and producer has done an incredible job. He is either 60 or he understands that generation extremely well. This is a wonderful series. The actors are first rate, Joanna Lumley is terrific. When you remember Patsy from AbFab, and see Ms. Lumley in this, you realize what a good actor she is. If you are a fan of hers, grab it.

I just finished series 1 & 2. I love Joanna Lumley and was surprised to find a cast of familiar faces from other BBC classics. It takes a bit a patience to get through the first series. It's pretty glum, but you have time to get introduced to everyone. The second series is great. There's a lot more characters who come in and out that add a humorous tone.

The writing, the directing, the acting the, incredible honesty makes this DVD set a must for anyone who longs for story and image that completely satisfies the desire of introspection and the wisdom that comes from it. I have shared this with friends and I must choose my friends well because they feel the same way I do (over-the-top amazement!) and have purchased their own DVD set. I can't say enough about how subtleness is used so daringingly up front. I love "Sensitive Skin"!!! I am so glad a friend told me about it. How else would I have found it! To Hugo Blick, the writer,director, producer; thank you, thank you, thank you--and p-l-e-a-s-e- do more!!!! Hugo Blick is also a great actor and plays the GI in an episode. What a lovely treat that is!

This is a wonderful "bittersweet dramedy" rendered in twelve half-hour episodes. If only there had been more closure to the storyline; the writers/producers leave us after the main character has come to grips with certain elements of her life, but also at the very moment she is embarking on a juicy new "life chapter"! Characters we are just now warming are snatched out from under us as Series 2 (disc 2) ends.

JOANNA LUMLEY's PERFORMANCE

I had never seen Joanna Lumley in a leading role (no, I never did get around to watching ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS) and was deeply impressed by her work in Sensitive Skin. Here, as a 62-year old woman struggling with an unfulfilling marriage, her out-to-lunch adult son, her bitter sister, and life and death in general, she is oh-so-heartbreakingly good: pensive, quietly intelligent, quietly glamorous, quietly tragic, even, in her way. Her wit is dry but never cutting or sarcastic; you sense she is a more-than-decent person, possibly even a kind one. And she seems to have an air of bittersweet humor about her at all times, as though people's most outrageous, offensive, or hurtful behavior amuses her. But she telegraphs her amusement in a way that makes it seem she is not only smiling over their absurdities, but laughing at herself, too. What I loved best about her was her air of vulnerability.

Her face can be described as a "magnificent ruin": conventionally, model-worthy beautiful, but also slightly craggy with the years, with regret, and with a subdued sort of pain she keeps close to her chest. She is elegantly but heavily made up with dark lip rouge and black eye pencil and softly glowing blush, almost as though the rituals of beauty help ease this unnamed, muted pain she carries around with her at all times.

DISC 1 (SERIES 1)

There is a marked difference between the two discs. The first disc, series 1, is more like a series of vignettes that are loosely related due to the recurring characters and themes. The general vignette subjects include: managing to live with a neurotic long-time spouse who hasn't emotionally resonated with you for years; dealing with an envious sister and her boorish husband; wondering whether you've really "made something" of your life after all; trying to fill the inexplicable holes in your heart with posh flats and Vidal Sassoon haircuts and always coming up short; and being alarmingly pursued by a variety of inappropriate men.

The first few episodes did not really hold my attention all that well, because the writers just drop us into said vignettes and show us a series of characters we don't know who display neurotic, selfish, bizarre, or embarassing behavior. Sometimes I felt my attention wander.

I felt, oddly enough, that there was a whif of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM about this series. Now, please know that they are vastly different shows with *completely* different approaches and senses of humor. CURB is broad, laugh-out-loud, outrageous comedy rendered in colorful splashes; SKIN is utterly subdued, autumnal, bitterish-sweet "dramedy" that mixes sharp, cutting humor with sometimes heart-wrenching reflections on life and death. But, they are similar in that in both series, the main characters encounter increasingly absurd people who make the main characters, dysfunctional as they themselves might be, seem almost sane in relation to the rest of the world.

I guarantee that even if you weren't that engaged by the first few episodes, the last episode of this 6-part disc will hook you expertly and reel you in. After that, the show really picks up steam.

DISC 2 (Series 2)

The second disc/series is much more like a traditional serial, with plots and subplots that run throughout all 6 episodes. It is also much more emotionally compelling than the first disc.There are some shocking plot twists throughout, all the way to the last episode. That's about all I can say without giving away spoilers, but I hope you stick with the series until the end.

OTHER IMPRESSIONS

I was so disappointed when I realized BBC had not made any more episodes after these twelve. There are so many characters I wanted to know more about, storylines I wanted to explore in greater depth. I believe HB0 will be producing a re-make of this series starring Kim Cattrell in the Lumley role, but I urge you to see the original version first because I highly doubt the same "autumnal" tone will translate into the American version.

The overall impression of the teleplay, humor, acting, camera work and color palette is indeed one of autumn--the autumns of people's lifespans, but also autumn as a represenation of emotional bruising and bottled up-pain. The somber selections of classical, folk, and pop music combine to create an almost constant elegiac tone; even at the conclusion of the funniest or most amusing scenes, the music reminds us that life is always embroidered with pain, one side lined with humor but the other inevitably lined with suffering.

Denis Lawson is excellent as Lumley's husband; this Scottish actor (Ewan MacGregor's uncle) is highly underrated and I always long to see him on screen more. Pitch-perfect guest stars include luminaries such as Frances De La Tour and Jean Marsh (in a devastating role).

RECOMMENDATION

If you are looking for sharp humor but not for outright comedy; if you don't mind a good dose of the bitter with your sweet (I don't really even think there is a "sweet" here); and if you don't mind not quite knowing "what ultimately happens" to the characters you've grown to be invested in, this series will really speak to you. Be prepared to sit and brood a little bit and perhaps even shed a tear throughout.

Sooner of later everyone is going to have to turn 60. Joanna Lumley, seemed destined to never grow up in Ad Fab. She begins this series with a brilliant one liner about hormone therapy reminiscent of the narcissistic lush she once played, but Sensitive Skin is different. It is as real as the problems of growing older. The series takes on all the uncertainty, mortality and regret that comes with age. It does so with black humor lingering looks and pregnant pauses that allow us to fill in the blanks without slowing the pace. Often what is not said is what makes this all too short series such a gem.

You won't find many belly laughs here because the humor is filled with an irony that is visceral. So much of life just doesn't seem to work as it once did for her. We watch as her choices narrow and defeats that would have been brushed side in youth become defining and perhaps insurmountable. We accompany her through the loss of love and the death of friends who can't make the required transitions. In the end, we "settle in" with her as she comes to fully know herself and forge a new life based perhaps on better choices. We are left with a message of hope that life and love go on, proving that 60 is not too late to start over.

This was different than any show I have seen lately. Very well done and the acting superb.

Bought this set simply because of Joanna Lumley, who in my mind is the greatest comedic talent since Lucille Ball, yet she is more frequently dramatic, of late. This British import of her recent BBC series that ran for 2 years is more drama than comedy, and, as ever, she's watchable and fantastic.
Beyond her indelible Patsy Stone in 'Absolutely Fabulous', my personal favorite work of hers was 'Class Act' because of the exceptional supporting cast she worked with, and it was funny. There aren't many laughs in 'Sensitive Skin', in fact, its sort of foreboding- it makes turning 60 and being in your 60s seem very frightening, but in the next 20 years i hope to get over it.
One minor flaw is that EVERY male character in 'Sensitive Skin', in nearly every episode, is in complete awe of Joanna, invariably all falling madly in love with her- i get it, she's irresistable, i've purchased from Amazon everything her name is linked to, but the point does seem overstated. We, the audience, can love and admire her, uh, lovelieness, but it seems, well, yes, overstated.
It is fascinating melodrama, she has a husband, splits with husband, husband dies, meets a long line of suitors, then winds up in the final episode with what seems to be a reincarnation of the dead husband. The British locales seem bleak, dreary and yet invigorating, somehow, for Joanna to sludge through all of her miseries.
I would love to see Ms. Lumley in a first rate theatrical release, win an Oscar to get the dramatic juices extracted from her, and then return to comedy. How many actresses are truly, with genious, hilarious? Ms. Lumley is amongst a scant few who have the gift of comedic brilliance that trancends cultures, age, race, gender. So, let her be done with dull miscast sons, dead husbands, or husky sobbing with a long face squeezing out a tear with a snivel as seen in 'Sensitive Skin'.
Funniest actress ever. Versatile yes, it has been proved. Now, please be hilarious again. Nobody else is.

If you liked Ab Fab and Clatterford, you will definitely enjoy Sensitive Skin...Lumley
takes a look at love, life and romance in her 50-60's. Pathos, comedy, excellent.
Just love her comedic range...and have enjoyed watching her for years but this series
was particularly good because it revolves around situations and thoughts that are
"age appropriate" (if you are 60 something).

A dark comedy that could easily have fallen flat were it not for a superb cast and excellent directing
The writing could have been better; I'm actually pleased they left this excellent series where they did
Joanna Lumley shines in this

I love Johanna Lumley (love the Ab Fab character; Patsy), but this one was incredibly depressing. The scenes were dark and dreary and dealt with depressing topics like aging, the lethal health problems that come with aging, suicide, regret, confusion and the end of ones life and inability at ever starting over again, or having second chances. Davina Jackson also betrays her husband Al Jackson in a bitter way, which coupled with the stories fixation on age and death only added an even more depressing element to it. I mean, its not like her husband could ever really get another woman into him at that age (which was 61). The only good, consistent comedy bit is her son, who is actually supposed to be 33 not 30 like presented in the product description. The movie doesn't seem to have a point or tangible story line. The plot is quite aimless. I also wonder, whatever happened to the dog that was tied up outside the hair-cutters? Not bad to watch but just beware thats its incredibly depressing.