KATHRYN FLETT’S My TV Week: A stylish thriller with a French twist

The Reunion

Fridays, 9pm, ITV1 and ITVX 

Rating:

I came to ITV1’s six-parter The Reunion (which has already streamed on ITVX) without having read the bestseller by Guillaume Musso on which it’s based. 

Despite being a Franglais co-production with a smattering of big British names it’s arguably the most stylistically/culturally French slice of telly since Emily In Paris.

Joke! Obviously, Emily in Paris is about as culturally French as McDonald’s, but The Reunion is Le Real Deal. And though the first episode’s plotting was challenging, the logical inconsistencies were easier to ignore with a glass of rosé. 

I sipped it while squinting at the gorgeous sun-drenched Cote d’Azur locations, and despite the English rain hammering at the window I could almost pretend I was on a Provencal holiday. Though perhaps, given the body count, not my ideal holiday.

This week UK critic Kathryn Flett reviews The Reunion (pictured) on ITV, which is set in France. She ranks it three stars

Anyway, the plot: our anti-hero, Thomas (Ioan Gruffudd playing French, with an English accent), is a middle-aged novelist plagued by memories of his late-1990s final year at school. 

His romantic crush – beautiful, vivacious Vinca (beautiful, vivacious Ukrainian-American Ivanna Sakhno) – disappeared on a dark and snowy night… a night in which Thomas and his friend Maxime (Gregory Fitoussi from Spiral) – now a politician – also committed a crime which is, quite literally, about to be uncovered.

Though engagingly clever and stylish, The Reunion had numerous silly moments, prompting me to shout ‘C’est ridicule!’ at the telly before, inevitably, spilling my wine. Chief among these was 49-year-old Ioan Gruffudd’s parents being played by Rupert Graves, 60, and Dervla Kirwan, 51.

This trio can, and did, act their socks off. But giving Dervla a grey bob and Rupert a pair of ‘dad jeans’ couldn’t disguise the fact that they looked more like Gruffudd’s siblings. 

Which, in turn, struck me as a peculiarly unnecessary bit of French glamour-casting. 

Had it been an English production the roles would’ve been played by, say, Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton and it would have been just as good – arguably even better – and I wouldn’t have sacrificed a lovely glass of rosé.

Thomas (pictured) (Ioan Gruffudd), is a middle-aged novelist plagued by memories of his late-1990s final year at school

Then there was the equally distracting fact that the parents – retired schoolteachers – lived in a glorious three-storey seafront villa in Cap d’Antibes which (Google revealed) is probably worth at least five million euros. 

If French teaching salaries and pensions are that good, then it’s no wonder we’ve been having so many strikes this side of La Manche.

However, if viewers can get past all this – and a script low on laughs and big on portentous, po-faced lines such as ‘She was snuffed out by the patriarchy. Her spirit will never die’ and (one of Gruffudd’s voiceovers) ‘I came home to make truth show its face. And now I can hardly bear to look at it’ – The Reunion is a clever, pacy thriller with an outcome that’s entirely impossible to predict. Especially if you haven’t read the book.

On day one, poor Mike got the axe – literally 

Alone

Sundays, 9pm, Channel 4 

Rating:

We’re only one episode (and one man down, sadly) into Channel 4’s out-there new reality show Alone, and despite the £100,000 up for grabs for the winner, the ten remaining intrepid souls are already wondering whether being dumped solo in a Canadian wilderness four times the size of the United Kingdom, on the edge of the Arctic Circle, and outnumbered by 3,000 bears, herds of moose and packs of cougars and wolves is such a fun idea after all. 

UK critic Kathryn Flett says: ‘I really felt for poor Mike, after an altercation with an axe led to the 49-year-old joiner being airlifted out on day one’

And if you’re thinking Alone has anything in common with the most recent series of BBC hit Race Across The World apart from being set in Canada (good PR!), you’re welcome to another think.

Compared to sleeping badly in a makeshift ‘tent’ with just a night- vision camera for company while a bear sniffs your socks, my own youthful whitewater-rafting/horseback safari-ing looks like a fairground waltzer ride.

So I really felt for poor Mike, after an altercation with an axe led to the 49-year-old joiner being airlifted out on day one; his tears clearly stemmed more from the shame than the pain.

While it’s still too early to guess who has the smarts to go the distance, I’d bet bubbly blonde fashionista Naomi – so obviously set up as a grizzly’s potential canapé (‘I get lost round Tesco!’) – will get much further than we’re meant to expect.

 I’m sold on crazy agents

The backstories of agents revealed surprisingly likeable youngsters whose motivations are far from predictable

In Crazy Rich Agents (Sundays, BBC2), a global property company recruits wannabe British agents – working for commission only – whose naked ambition makes Apprentice contestants look bashful. 

Hopefuls compete for a placement in NYC – and potential earnings of £1m+. In episode one, the backstories of (ex-care-worker) Georgie, (Milton Keynes agent) Krish, above, and (super-hustler) Aly revealed surprisingly likeable youngsters whose motivations are far from predictable. I’m in. 

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