PodBill Just what I expected

BallWubba Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Rexanne It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

debdshaw60 What the hell? This is a beautifully written, slow paced story of what happens in the aftermath of a child's abduction and death.Kiri is a child who was found next to her dead mother who died of an overdose. Her drug dealer dad goes to prison. She's placed with a white family who are in the process of adopting her when the social worker takes her on a visit to her father's parents. The story ends abruptly with all the balls in the air. There's no resolution. Brilliant show... no end.

epat I've come to really like BBC miniseries. Not that longer series don't have their charms, but with miniseries, three, four, maybe even six or eight episodes & the story's told. No need to keep watching year after year. The pithiness of it appeals to me.Another aspect where the BBC beats American TV hands down is their realism. There's a certain gloss to American series that just doesn't ring true; everybody's just so unnaturally good-looking it's hard to forget they're actors. BBC actors, on the other hand, look like... well, anybody. They're just so natural, so normal looking, it's hard to remember they're actors. And isn't that the way it's supposed to be?In this series, Kiri, a black child, is scheduled soon to be adopted by her white foster parents the Warners. Social worker Miriam however, in the interests of Kiri knowing her roots, approves an unsupervised visit with her birth mother & her grandfather Nate. But Kiri is abducted during the visit by her ex-con birth father Tobi & later murdered.At first, it's naturally assumed Tobi murdered her. Then comes a red herring episode in which Si, the Warners' sensitive but shy & somewhat peculiar son seems almost certain to be the killer. The culprit finally turns out to be the last person you'd ever suspect, the mild-mannered foster father Jim, who'd been so unfailingly patient, considerate & downright decent throughout.Ok, mystery solved. The fallout turns out to be far more riveting than the mystery tho.Hounded by the media, the dedicated Miriam is forced out of her job - her vocation really, the job she's dedicated her life to - by a cowardly bureaucracy all too ready to throw a scapegoat to the wolves at the slightest whiff of scandal. Her diligence, her compassion, her wisdom, her years of experience thrown on the scrap heap because of a single highly publicized error in judgment. The sheer injustice is thrown into sharp relief when grief-stricken self-reproaching Miriam, her life now ruined, is recognized by a compete stranger. This woman walks straight up to her, punches her in the face, then self-righteously stands over her, shouting "A child! How could you?" as if Miriam, who only ever wanted to do right by Kiri, had murdered the child herself.Kiri's father Tobi, the obvious suspect, is equally hounded - indeed tried & convicted - by the media. He has a history of violence & he's black: clearly guilty. His father Nate (a fine understated performance by Paapa Essiedu) at first believes him guilty & sets out to track him down. When Tobi convinces him he's innocent, Nate arranges with the police for Tobi to turn himself in. All he asks is a chance for Tobi to shower, change clothes & have a decent meal at home before doing so. Just as they're about to leave for the police station tho, the police renege on the agreement, burst in & arrest Tobi as a fugitive instead.The foster mother Alice, having come to believe her son Si is the real killer, gives damning false evidence against Tobi in order to protect Si. Si, the foster brother who genuinely loved Kiri, who was most distraught at her death, knows Alice is lying & correctly deduces why. Si's the one who figures out his dad killed her.He confronts Jim with a choice: Admit it now & it goes no further; deny it & he'll take his suspicions not to the police but - far worse - to his mother. Jim breaks down & confesses. He'd seen the girl as "new glue" to hold his failing marriage together. When she rejected the impending adoption to run off with her birth father instead, he killed her in a fit of rage.Si then explains his rationale for keeping Jim's guilty secret: Shaken & appalled by the public scrutiny his family has already endured, this shy sensitive boy can all too easily imagine becoming notorious as the son of "the monster family" whose dad murdered poor little Kiri. To avoid that, he'll let an innocent man to go to prison. He's a criminal anyway, isn't he? What does it matter? And this is the saddest most shocking part of all. Si isn't a bad kid, quite the opposite. Throughout, he's shown love & concern for his family, including Kiri, but his desperate need for at least the façade of white middle class respectability, no matter how sham, takes precedence over an unknown black man's innocence.What a truly horrible ending! But that brings us back to the realism of the BBC. No happy ending here. No justice. Anywhere in the white-dominated world, a black man, innocent or not, is five times more likely to be convicted of a crime than a white man & this series doesn't flinch from this ugly reality.

nichols_kennedy I watched after seeing the advertisements on Hulu. I love a good mystery/thriller. However, this is a terrible show. The little black girl is murdered and her biological father, who is innocent, is automatically thrown in jail. The one who actually committed the crime, the foster dad, goes unpunished and free. Little girl gets no justice and neither does the family of her biological dad. This is a terrible series.

ianlouisiana .....they are all despised by the the Tabloid Press and a large percentage of its readers. As a result of several tragic high - profile cases in recent years,local government Childrens' Services have been vilified and individual Social Workers hounded out of their jobs and the sterling work that most of them do it is conveniently forgotten. "Kiri" starts off with a compassionate and well - meaning social worker making the decision to allow a young black girl about to be adopted by white parents visit her blood grandparents. When the child fails to return home and is rather quickly found murdered,Miriam (Miss S.Lancashire ,convincing dowdy - down but not out;hanging in there) is hung out to dry by her superiors,all keen to distance themselves from her. "99% of the time you're a brilliant social worker...." her boss says as she spears her in the back. Sporting a convincing Bristol accent,Miss Lancashire has no trouble sweeping "Kiri" along in her wake.Not since "Happy Valley" has British TV presented a female character so dominating. In this first episode most of the other characters are hastily sketched,leaving Miriam alone to be fleshed out as a real human being. This may change as the series continues,but right now we are looking at yet another triumph,another award - winning role for one of our best T.V actresses. She is in danger of giving Social Workers a good name.