Gwyneth Hughes’ Five Days proves an interesting take on your standard crime procedural
“Someone has to know where she is”
Just a quickie for this as I try to work my way through my watchlist on what was Britbox. Written by Gwyneth Hughes and directed by Otto Bathurst and Simon Curtis, Five Days takes a different point of view of your average crime drama by dropping into a long-running police investigation on five non-consecutive days as its progress, or lack thereof, comes under increased scrutiny.
Leanne Wellings is on her way to visit her grandfather with her two youngest kids but after stopping in a layby to buy some flowers, never makes it there. CCTV shows the kids leaving the car of their own accord sometime later but all three are missing. The police begin to investigate but to little success in the first few days, leading frustrations to grow all around the friends, family and suspect list.
Days 1 and 3 feel par for the course in this respect but as we move to 28, 33 and 79, the opportunities to delve deeper into the storylines pays dividends as we get to see the repercussions of past actions. Sarah Smart’s strange do-gooder working her way into the Wellings household, the relationship between Leanne’s hubbie (David Oyelewo) and his broke best pal (Doug Allen), Leanne’s awful teenage daughter who didn’t go missing….
Hugh Bonneville and Janet McTeer make a slightly odd dysfunctional detective pair – her on the cusp of retirement, him just promoted to DCI and tensions burbling all around. But it all proves rather watchable, particularly with a stacked supporting cast with the likes of Penelope Wilton, Rory Kinnear, Harriet Walter, Margot Leicester and Jason Watkins popping in for a line or three.
