Alice & Jack (2024) | REVIEW

Series Created by Victor Levin.

In the last weekend of January, the full season of Alice & Jack, a British series soon to be released later this February on Channel 4 in the UK and in March on PBS in the US, was released on Denmark’s DRTV (the Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s online streaming service), which was a relatively big surprise to me. Created by Destination Wedding and 5 to 7 writer-director Victor Levin but directed by Hong Khaou and Juho Kuosmanen, the romance-drama series starring Domhnall Gleeson, Andrea Riseborough, Aisling Bea, Aimee Lou Wood, and Sunil Patel tells the story of two on-and-off lovers over the course of years as they struggle with relationships, parenthood, heartache, and poorly timed love. For six episodes, we follow them through their lives from 2007 all the way up to this current decade.

As the narrative is built around two lovers who struggle to get the timing right over several years in which they grow and develop as people, it is only natural to be reminded of Richard Linklater’s Before-trilogy starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy or even the Normal People adaptation starring Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. But Alice & Jack takes its central characters farther into adulthood than Normal People did, and, unlike the Before-trilogy which only follows its characters in singular days together, Alice & Jack shows you its characters through the intricacies of relationship deterioration that characters in the Before-trilogy only ever mentioned had happened elsewhere or in between films. 

However, like both the Before-trilogy and Normal People, Alice & Jack also features some well-tuned central performances that elevate the series immensely. Domhnall Gleeson and Andrea Riseborough’s scenes together are often very engaging, even though one of the characters is accused of blowing up the other person’s life time and time again. In its best moments, Gleeson plays his character’s honesty and frustration really well, while Riseborough’s performance can both deliberately hit you with a sledgehammer emotionally with frustration or move you to tears with subtle notes and romantic or bittersweet dialogue. They are powerful and gentle performers in an emotionally intelligent show that also features noteworthy work from Wood, Patel, and Bea, the latter of whom has some really excellent scenes with Gleeson in the early episodes (including one where they bond over their dislike of English accents in children of Irish heritage). While Patel and Wood’s roles grow, Bea’s character is best utilized in the early goings, while she kind of gets stuck with a sidelined character who becomes a little too underwritten in the middle section of the series. 

Thematically, the show is centered on love, relationships, commitment issues, and timing — at one point, a character notes that “luck and timing” can often decide whether you end up with the one you most desire — but it also, in moments, focuses on two father-daughter relationships. While one of these relationships had a satisfying arc, the other father-daughter relationship felt under-explored given that the series consists of six episodes and thus has plenty of time to devote to that subplot. It must be said that since it covers their relationship all the way from 2007, there are, in fact, a lot of time jumps. Eventually, it begins to feel like a bit much, though perhaps it is less jarring if the series is viewed weekly (whereas the entire season was dumped onto DRTV here so that anyone in Denmark can binge-watch it if they so desire).

The series is often very realistic, which is one of its better traits. Still, I must say that the way it wraps itself up felt a tad too ‘writerly’ — or maybe even a little bit too melodramatic — insofar as it feels inauthentic, somewhat obvious, and too poetic, even though it certainly comes at you with an emotional wallop. But while I have mixed thoughts on the ending and the way it tends to jump around abruptly, often, and in the middle of episodes, I really did enjoy the ride in large part because of the gentle and realistic work of the principal cast that is spearheaded by Andrea Riseborough and Domhnall Gleeson in strong form. Admittedly, I can’t say that it is ever at the level of the Before-trilogy or Normal People, but it absolutely is worth your time —if you’re into this sort of thing — since it is, again, a very emotionally intelligent and mature series that takes you through the overwhelming, unexpected, and, for some, bumpy rollercoaster of life and love. 

– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.