Despite being a bookworm I haven't read Stonemouth so can't say if the novel is worthy (though I assume it is, with an author like Iain Banks) but I have watched the TV adaptation on BBC1 and can say it's pretty to look at but often slight and silly.
Stewart did a terrible thing, an appalling, dreadful thing. Oh, it haunts him. Oh, it tortures him. Oh, the terrible, tormenting thing! It led to him being hounded out of town by the local gangsters, and meant he had to jump aboard a freight train like a hobo and go into exile in London. It means he needs to sheepishly ask permission to return to Stonemouth so he may attend his friend's funeral.
Much of the first episode is about Stewart being haunted by this horrific thing which has skewed and poisoned his life and so when the hideous act is finally revealed - a quickie in a toilet cubicle - I laughed aloud. Maybe my morals are questionable but, come on! Was that it? It's that which leads fierce gangsters to kidnap him and dangle him off a bridge? It was just silly.
As were the scary gangsters. Peter Mullan plays Donald Murston, local crime lord, and father of the girl Stewart cheated on. We simply have to assume he's terrifying, or take everyone else's word for it, because, to the viewers, he's as scary as a burst beach ball. When we first see him he's leaping around in his yuppie gym to some aerobics, meanwhile his wife is running around town having a very blatant affair which involves lingering kisses on the doorstep in front of any passerby, so Don can hardly be perceived as threatening. And here the writers make the childlike error of telling rather than showing. Why not skilfully show that Don was frightening, rather than just pile a bunch of characters on screen telling us he's scary, and constantly warning Stewart about him. Show us, don't just tell us. We are finally shown Don's wrath, at the very end of the episode, but even this is absurd, as he sends some bumbling goons to kidnap Stewart and swing him upside down from a bridge. All because he cheated, once, on Don's pretty li'l daughter.
Ellie, the girl whom Stewart loves, and the girl for whom this campaign of terror is being waged, is dull, and it's impossible to see how she fires such passions. She was simply a pretty girl with a pretty name. She was flimsy, as were many of the supporting characters, such as Stewart's friend who is a game designer and lives in a duplex, plus he's gay, so he's cool, isn't he? He's a dashing rebel amongst the small-town hicks! Tick the cool cliches off on your list....again, the writers are telling rather than showing.
Alongside these silly characters was an emerging murder mystery. Stewart is home for his friend, Cal's, funeral. He committed suicide by jumping from the town's huge bridge but Stewart is convinced it was murder, as he'd received a panicky call from Cal in the days prior to his death, where he begged for a place to stay, implying he was in trouble. This lent some steel to the drama, but wasn't quite enough to salvage it for me.
The setting was lovely, the light was beautiful, the soundtrack was nicely haunting, but the characters were flimsy, young and pretty, or were Peter Mullan in his tediously typecast role. Even worse, the whole thing was threaded together by Stewart's narration which is delivered in a forced Scottish accent, and sounded as though it was being recited from a piece of paper, one with 'sound dead Scottish!' stamped at the top.
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