Why is this narrated? The direction for performances flatten every spoken line, which in themselves offer no setting dynamism or effective characterisation, and collapse the individual voices of the game's cast into a single barely awake drone. The chase for seriousness is maddening with this understated read; every Finch is already a parody character, so aggrandised is their position in this world, keeping quarters as if they are consorts of many themed Ikea complete room renovations - a gross misunderstanding of art design, in my opinion: it contrasts the magical realism, or heightened reality, of the house's architecture and possible supernaturalia with an utterly mundane and ill-courted seeming interiored juvenilia of daily life. How at home are we meant to feel with the glowing house in the harbour when looking out of what is effectively a wizard's tower if the room is coated in kid's stickers and hunting gear? The script itself is barely more than descriptive, and is completely redundant to the game - if this had shipped nearly wordless, playing through each of the segments with no narration from Edith, it would have strung together a surreal but obvious link between a people whose downfalls seem tragic in the traditional sense. With the VO, and presentation for about half of the Finch fam, they all read as gullible, immaterial, or idiotic. Imagine reading Dubliners and instead of having described to you the rigour and depth of inner life extent to the city and human condition, everybody was a bit floaty and got hit by passing trains or choking on pheasant bones. UGH

Reviewed on Dec 25, 2022


Comments