Three Edwardian nannies. Berkeley Square The square in the heart of London’s West End, the abode of the best aristocratic families of London, a stronghold of respectability and dignity, where, it would seem, nothing out of the ordinary can happen. Three completely different venerable families and three completely different girls who settled in these families as nannies: each brought their own circumstances to these houses, whether it was a confident warm hand of fate or a labyrinth of thorns, behind the next barbed wall of which a faint saving light shone. What's next? And then there's life. Daily work, patience, love, strong friendship, hard-won happiness and new twists of fate.
Sounds interesting? Well, in that case, my advice to you - do not read further. The less you know before watching the plot of this series, the more interesting it looks, worries about the heroes. Moreover, it consists of only ten series.
So, shot under the curtain of the 90s, the series is sustained at a leisurely pace "adagio", the picture is chambered, warm - warming us, spoiled with a clear image of the 21st century, in the evenings. It should be noted that the series "Berkeley Square", although it is affixed to the IMDb tag "drama" - in fact a perfect melodrama, making the viewer worry about the whimsical fates of the characters. It is set according to the original script, written not at the beginning, but at the end of the 20th century, which causes albeit lightweight, but still the disadvantages of the series for me - a few simple scenery to pass for the interiors of the richest houses in London, some of the actions of the characters are too disharmonious with the era. But the actresses seem to understand their heroines well, so the acting seems harmonious and not irritating. Here's Matty, a professional nanny, who ended up in the St. John's house with the most excellent recommendations. Matty is focused on her job, raising aristocratic crumbs... but is her heart iron? And love is ready to knock on her door, and a commitment to the duty of friendship will put Matty before the need for a moral choice. In my opinion, Matty is one of the most interesting characters from the point of view of psychology, and, alas, the most succinctly written. The writers have reserved their handful of trials for her, but her past is vague, and we know almost nothing about it.
But Hannah, in the past - a maid as rich as and arrogant lady, she knew love and lost it. The main value, the stimulus to life and the main secret for her, expelled from the village, where the purity of morals is observed with enviable imagination and energy, was the son of Billy. Having found salvation as a nanny in a wealthy family, she is forced to hide it, leaving in the care of a kind-hearted immigrant woman from the London slums, and give her tenderness to the master’s children, under the vigilant eye of a strict, if not cruel, senior nanny. However, this will not be long...
Unlike her girlfriends, village girl Lydia lacks stars from the sky and nannying is a way to get a better share. But how much do you have to learn? And the old nanny, who raised the owner of the house, is always unhappy: why would she need an additional pair of young hands, if she herself is not so old and can cope with everything on her own? Hardly finding a bad world in a house in Berkeley Square, Lydia becomes a stranger in his own. And then the owner’s son begins to look at the young girl, and his passion takes on threatening, dark shades. However, the story of Lydia is very simple and everyday.
The series also tells about the Lord’s life. Only employers of girls have other concerns. In one family, the family boat seems to have given a decent leak called adultere, and much of the screen time is devoted to this storyline. Although I am not sure that the Edwardian society, which closely monitors violations of decency, would let Mrs. St. John walk by the hand with her lover, and visit hotel rooms one-on-one. But let's forgive the writers. Another family came under the control of the second wife of the owner, an active American, until he, it seems, despite the gray hair, can not part with the memories of his childhood. The third family is more like army barracks - until the masters depart for India, leaving the frightened offspring under the control of devoted discipline to the gnashing of the elder nanny Simmons. And here the boundaries between the estates will be erased in an unexpected way.
I confidently gave the series an 8. For me, this is an indicator of a good, attractive to the screen in free hours, but unremarkable in comparison with some similar samples, the series. Yeah, really good. It’s not a bad idea, so it’s suitable for family viewing. The characters are alive, not flat, they want to empathize. More specifically, I wanted to until a certain point. There was one circumstance that dealt a targeted blow to my impressions of the series. Namely, Hannah's selfish act. I hope that everyone who has read up to this point is ready for hints of the development of the plot, so I say directly. It is difficult to understand her actions, to replace the child. She explains her actions with love for her son, trying to save him from imminent danger. But let me -- in this way, any action could be justified. In the end, she could have killed the master’s child and then replaced it with her own, explaining it as motherly care. But you can't. Protecting her child, she trampled on the hopes of the mother of another child who, if it hadn't opened, would have been left lying in the midst of the untidy backyard plantings of a crooked house in a London slum, and no one would have cried for him, no one would have prayed for his soul. Why would I? It happened. Hannah cornered herself, being a babysitter with her own child, allowed the child killer to escape responsibility, brought a woman accused of a crime she did not commit under the gallows. How was she gonna get out of this? And how do you deal with it now...
Summing up, it is impossible not to mention the numerous complaints of the audience on the suspended ending of the story and the thirst for continuation. Of course, I can not know exactly, but I did not think that the creators planned to continue the story. The tangles of storylines unraveled, giving the viewer the opportunity to imagine the end in proportion to their imagination and life experience ... and their ends intertwined again. Familiar to us from the old Soviet films, the format of the film story: everything that has to be said is said, and what remains outside the timekeeping - forgive me, this is life... it is impossible to tell all of it, otherwise you could follow the heroes to old age, and then their heirs, and their heirs and further to the end of time.