I quite liked Fiona’s Story, but not as much as you, I think.

My main problem with it was the passivity of Fiona. It made sense to me that she was standing by her man when she couldn’t be sure what he had done, but as soon as he had admitted to downloading all those images, I found it hard to believe she would get into bed with him, and not just bundle all her children up and drive away somewhere else, especially when we had already learned that their marriage was in trouble and they had sex once a year.

And there wasn’t much ambiguity to Jeremy Northam. As you say, the brother gave a supporting point-of-view that didn’t seem very real, or very convincing. There was never a point where I felt he was anything other than creepy and manipulative. So, I didn’t think Fiona really had any motivation to stay. If we saw that she loved him from the beginning, was still besotted by him, still wanted him sexually, it seems to me we would be exploring a richer dramatic situation. Or maybe it would have been interesting to have her meet the hot new girlfriend – did she really “not mind” that her new older man was under suspicion of downloading child porn? That’s an interesting character to start with.

The other problem that loomed large with me was the (possibly directorial?) decision to set it in what must have been at least a million-pound house (and Granny’s country pad must have cost more than that) and still retain lines about being short of money, and not being able to afford the mortgage. I know there are economic pressures that women feel in getting out of abusive domestic situations, but that didn’t sit easily with the Ideal Home lifestyle they lived. If leaving your child-abuse-collecting husband meant taking your children to live in a women’s refuge or on the street, then you might be racked with an aawful dilemma. If leaving your child-abuse-collecting creepy husband meant downsizing from a million pound house to a half-million pound house then, not so much.