UK thriller Too Close is not a whodunnit. The opening scene sets out the crime at the heart of the series in painful clarity: Connie (Denise Gough) is driving a car with two small children in the back on a rainy night when she comes to a stop on a drawbridge. She’s wild-eyed and wet-haired. An attempt to back up is blocked by the car behind her, then suddenly the car races forward – and goes off the bridge into the river.
Someone who seems to have her life somewhat more together, at least at first, is forensic psychiatrist Dr Emma Robertson (Emily Watson). An always welcome sight in film and television (Watson was recently one of the leads in Chernobyl), initially her role seems one we’ve seen before, the solid investigator just a little smarter than those around her.
But Watson’s characters are never that straightforward. Even if you’re used to her excellent performances (among her more recent work is her powerful turn in , now streaming at SBS On Demand), she’s outstanding here as a woman so used to pushing her feelings down, she’s left helpless when the cracks that were always there burst wide open.
When we first meet Emma she’s casually smoking by an upstairs window in her house and lying to her husband on the phone (of course she’s just stepped out from yoga; of course she’s not smoking). She’s also just taken on a big case. Connie and the children survived the crash, Connie claims she can’t remember a thing, and now Emma is the one who has to decide if she’s fit to stand trial.
Interrogations are the lifeblood of crime drama, and this is built around a particularly twisty and insightful game of cat-and-mouse. Both women want something from the other; Emma’s objective is to uncover the truth, while Connie’s manipulations have a darker edge. The dialogue is razor-sharp, the characters seemingly polar opposites until their deeper similarities come to the surface.
Connie (Denise Gough) in ‘Too Close’. Source: Snowed In Productions/All3Media International
Emma is a slightly frumpy, all-business professional. There’s a shadow over her past (a tiny unicorn sticker is not a good sign when there are no children in sight), and her marriage doesn’t seem the best. But whose does?
Connie has been dubbed “the yummy mummy monster” by media intensely focused on the case, a woman who seemed to have it all until the darkness inside her broke free. Now bruised and banged up, she’s all nervous energy and vaguely threatening pronouncements designed to strip away Emma’s soothing surface.
There’s a lot of energy in the room, but nowhere safe for it to go. “What are you meant to do with all the love that’s left after someone’s gone?” Connie asks at one point early on. Maybe it’s an attempt to air out her own pain. Maybe it’s a knife aimed at Emma’s own bruised heart.
Based on Natalie Daniels’ 2019 thriller, Too Close turns out to be part character drama, part mystery as Emma tries to find out exactly what could have driven Connie (literally) over the edge. Flashbacks reveal Connie had a growing obsession with Ness (Thalissa Teixeira, Trigonometry) her gay new neighbour and mother of one of the children in the back seat of her car. Exactly how that obsession played out – was she predator or prey – could provide the key.
Dr Emma Robertson and Connie: who is interrogating who? Source: Snowed In Productions /All3Media International
At least an obsession gives you a reason to go on. On the other side of the desk Emma is living a life of quiet suburban desperation, surrounded by people she no longer connects with. At a dinner party with her husband’s family, the guests compete to come up with the most scorching hot take on her latest case. With that kind of home life, it’s hardly surprising she throws herself into her work just a little too much.
And with Connie as her subject, who could blame her? Watson might be the big name of the cast but this series wouldn’t work half as well if it wasn’t a clash of acting equals. Gough is utterly compelling as a woman we see at two very distinct stages of her life; a bright, slightly bitchy mother before the crash, and a harsh weapon of a woman afterwards.
Thalissa Teixeira as Connie’s neighbour, Ness in ‘Too Close’. Source: Snowed In Productions/All3Media International
Forget your superhero battles; this clash might be waged with words and looks, but Too Close is a knockdown, drag out fight not easily forgotten.
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