5/5 You can't help but think of Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards
  by Robin N. Uncapher (Bethesda, MD)
A cabinet member's wife discovers that, not only is her husband unfaithful, but virtually every (male) political ally he has, is desperate to use her to make the problem go away. Flo, the initially innocent, and then clever wife, manages to turn the tables on everyone in this cynical but delicious story. I loved every minute of it.

Not least of the interesting things about this story are some parrallels with the Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards stories. Carl Bernstein said that he decided to write his book, A Woman in Charge, about Hillary Clinton, when he realized that she alone came out of her husband's sex scandal looking better than she had before it broke.

Bravo.



5/5 Intelligent drama
  by MaddyElizabeth (British Columbia, Canada)
This is a very well-written and well-directed dramawhich kept me riveted the whole time. Juliet Stevenson did a brilliant job as the Politician's wife, and Trevor Eve was wonderfully sleazy as her husband. Great show.

4/5 Very timely story!
  by Kendra
We watched the entire three part (though only 187 minutes, I think) movie last night and woke up to the newest political scandal with Eliot Spitzer. How timely!

This is a very good film about Flora, married to the Minister of Family whom espouses family values. Sure enough, the movie starts with Duncan, her husband, coming home with his entourage and having to let his wife know about his one-night stand with another woman, since the press has found out and they are about to be hounded.

Flora is absolutely broken-hearted. And, to make matters worse, nobody seems to show true sympathy to her for her heartbreak-- instead, everybody is concerned about Duncan keeping his position and about the "Party" (suffice it to say this has a definite liberal bias, but it's really not too bad).

Her father is even a creep. Flora comes down in the middle of the night and sees her father (one of the "party's" cronies) and when he begins to let her know how upset he is about Duncan's infidelity, Flora assumes she will be shown some concern. However, the dad is only concerned about himself and his upset is due to his fear that Duncan will go down and that his own future will be ruined. Despicable characters-- all of them!

Anyways, soon Flora receives an anonymous tape with very explicit recordings of some phone sex her husband took part in with the woman he was having an affair with. She soon recognizes that this was no "one-time" fling, but a serious affair that took place over the better part of a year and was very very serious. She begins to really despise her husband, while at the same time hanging on to the bit of love she once had for him. This part of the movie is interesting. It's obvious (to us) that she begins to really hate him-- hate his character and lack thereof. His flaws are completely noticeable-- maybe for the first time to Flora. He lies. He hates gays. He hates the needy. He says what he needs to say for political expediency, and then whispers to Flora how he will get away with breaking the promises he just made a moment before. He's definitely unlikeable.

However, rather than this being a "Let's bash the Conservatives" movie, one of Duncan's staff begins to help Flora plan Duncan's revenge. And, it soon turns out that more of the "Party" start to see the error of Duncan's ways, as well. So, there are definitely a few "honorable" people here, except, really, who is really honorable when the methods are so despicable, even if those methods are the absolute only way to achieve the necessary goals?

So, this becomes a film about morality, too. And, it is confusing, because we've grown to empathize with Flora but even she is capable of deceit. But, her methods are definitely underhanded even though her heart (for everyone but Duncan) is in the right place.

The acting is absolutely superb. Juliet Stevenson is extremely talented and I'm glad to see her in a lead role. Minnie Driver plays the mistress with a perfect British accent. Everyone else was good and the story moved along well, although had it gone a bit faster, I wouldn't have been disappointed.

Part of what is interesting here is the perceived necessity for the politicians' wives to stand by their men after their husbands' infidelities are exposed. We saw it with Hillary Clinton, we've seen it with Jim McGreevey and his wife, we've seen it with Larry Craig and his wife, and now we're seeing it with Elliot Spitzer and his sad-looking wife. These poor women (except for Hillary, I guess, who has her own reasons I suppose for staying)! They are paraded out in public to stand by their men and show support and smile and hold hands, etc., even while the pain is probably still profuse. Personally, I think the women would gain so much more respect by leaving. And, with Hillary, specifically (since she herself is in the public eye), I think her likeability would have gone way up had she left her chronically unfaithful husband behind.



5/5 Political bedfellows
  by D. Hartley (Seattle, WA USA)
An outstanding and overlooked drama from 1995 that was originally presented as a three-part miniseries in the UK. Juliet Stevenson delivers a tour-de-force performance as Flora, the staunchly supportive wife of Duncan Matlock,an ambitious rising star in England's conservative Tory party. Scandal erupts when Duncan is caught with his pants down by the notorious British tabloid press. His fling with an "escort" girl (Minnie Driver) quickly becomes fertile ground for muckraking, as he happens to be the Minister of Family (oops).

At first, Flora suffers in silence,desperately wanting to believe her husband's assurance that it was only a regrettable one night stand. She caves to pressure from Duncan's handlers (including her own father) to keep a brave face in public, "for the sake of the party". But when a conscience-stricken member of the Minister's inner circle slips Flora some irrefutable evidence proving that the "fling" was in fact a torrid year-long affair, her pain turns to bitterness and anger. Fueled by the deep sense of betrayal and growing awareness of Duncan's wanton abuse of his powers, she hatches a clever and methodical scheme to subvert his political capital right under his nose.

The beauty of Paula Milne's script lies in the subtle execution of Flora's revenge. Avoiding the usual "Hell hath no fury" clichés, Milne's protagonist (not unlike Livia in I, Claudius) finds her empowerment through an assimilated understanding of what makes the members of this particular boy's club tick; she is then able to orchestrate events in such a manner that they all end up falling on their own swords (keep your friends close, but your enemies closer). Intelligently written, splendidly acted, and not to be missed.


5/5 A tale of revenge
  by FrKurt Messick (Bloomington, IN USA)
`The Politician's Wife' is a fascinating drama, a revenge story of the first order, and a good rendition of post-Thatcher politics shortly before the fall of the Conservative Party, in part due to charges of corruption from being so long in office. This is a Channel Four production, also shown on the PBS series (heavily edited) `Masterpiece Theatre' in the United States.

This is a drama as a triptych. The first part is discovery, the second part failed reconciliation and aftermath, with the third part revenge. Flora Matlock is a perfect politician's wife - dutiful, full of charm and good works, reasonably stylish without being ostentatious, and definitely one not to outshine her rising-star ministerial husband. Coming from a family with a political background (her father is himself an almost-has-been in the Party, hoping to hitch himself to the rising Duncan Matlock), she was the `right sort' who could be counted on to act in such a way as was `meet and right so to do'. But Duncan has a secret that has just been revealed.

Flora discovers her husband's affair first from the media onslaught that occurs as a result of the press getting hold of the story. Duncan Matlock enlists the aid of the various party members, including Flora's own father, to pressure her to forgive him, not just for the sake of their marriage, but for the sake of the party; they hope that her party-political upbringing will help her to `see reason' in this process.

However, there is one party functionary who does not like what is going on (Mark Hollister, a middle-weight player in the party, who perhaps sees the fall of Duncan Matlock as his opportunity to rise in the party). Duncan Matlock had described his affair with Jennifer Caird in very generic, disarming terms to Flora. Hollister provides very graphic tape recordings of phone sex and other very prurient details that show Flora just how much Duncan was concealing. Flora decides to take on her husband, her husband's mistress Jennifer (who seems to thrive on the continuing attention both of Duncan and the media), and the whole party apparatus to get justice, a kind of justice she decides for herself.

The party functionaries are Machiavellian, but it turns out they are rank amateurs compared to Hollister (in the beginning) and what Flora Matlock becomes. She uses her history and their constant underestimation of her to good advantage, and soon has the upper hand in all dealings. Her revenge is indeed sweet in the end.


Acting and Directing

Juliet Stevenson does a remarkable acting job, going from the somewhat mousy to dramatically tough Flora Duncan in the space of three episodes. To play the two different characters would be acting ability enough; to carry forward both characters as a believable combination of both into one is great. Trevor Eve plays a great villain as Duncan Matlock, condescending and ambitious, deceitful and emotionally usurious. Indeed, one might wonder at the mismatch between Flora and Duncan given their different characters, save for one conversation between Flora and her father, where he claims that she had to know what he was like when she picked him for a husband, and she responds that she didn't pick him, he picked her. Another stand-out performance is by Minnie Driver, in her pre-Hollywood days, as Jennifer Caird, the outspoken mistress of Duncan Matlock. Anton Lesser also does a good job as Mark Hollister, playing the one who seems to care both what happens to Flora as well as to his own career.

This is definitely one of Graham Theakston's best - he has directed episodes in a lot of dramatic series (Cadfael, A Touch of Frost, Taggart, Dempsey & Makepeace) as well as a few other stand-alone projects (Sherlock, The Mill on the Floss). The pacing is good throughout, and the overall tone of the production is a good one, befitting its political theme.

The production won the BAFTA TV award, the International Emmy for drama, the Peabody Award, and the Writer's Guild of Great Britain award for dramatic writing, all in 1995 or 1996.



Spoiler Alert * * * Spoiler Alert * * * Spoiler Alert

Read no further if you don't want to know the nature and outcome of Flora's revenge.

My favourite scene has to be at the conclusion, while Duncan is sitting in the airport lobby seats, waiting for a flight to take him to a do-nothing graveyard post in the European Parliament (I recall the words of Jim Hacker, from `Yes, Minister', who described taking a European Parliament job as a dead-end for a political career - `You're reduced to having to start your own party if you ever want to make it back,' he said). On the television in the airport lobby is a broadcast of the election results for the parliamentary seat vacated by Duncan, and there is the victor, the radiant Flora Matlock, who has beaten her husband and the whole of the party machine at their own game. Indeed, she was by that point another Iron Lady in the making.

It is not unusual in politics for a widow to take the place of a politician who dies in office. This was true even before women began to regularly elected in their own right - it also speaks to the skill and lack of appreciation that politician's wives tend to get in general. In the United States, with Hillary Clinton now running for the same office her husband held (who had his own brush with infidelity), this drama seems like the right kind of piece. All things old are new again.