I Am Danielle, review: a love story that was about as exciting as a life assurance advert
I Am Danielle (Channel 4), the second in Dominic Savage’s second series of female character studies, was a bit of a bore. It kind of had to be – the story was about a photographer (Letitia Wright) looking to find a decent man and a long-lasting relationship, and for most of the hour it appeared she had. Michael (CJ Beckford), a model she met on a shoot, was so perfect in every way that he and Danielle spent many, many scenes sitting by glimmering canals gazing into each other’s eyes as the camera got closer and closer to eyes, hands, mouths… all the places connection begins.
It was beautifully photographed but with the plaintive piano in the background it also made the whole thing look a little bit like a life assurance advert.
The problem was that for there to be any structure to the piece it required something to go wrong. “Woman searching for lifelong happiness… finds it” is not a great logline. As such, and without wishing to spoil it, after 40 minutes of gazing and yearning, Danielle’s contentment was summarily detonated. Yet because the preceding half hour had been so smushy her defining tragedy actually felt like a blessed relief.
It most definitely wasn’t a surprise – Danielle had spent much of the film asking Michael if he was “for real”, saying she “needed certainty” and generally navel-gazing about the importance of being able to trust any potential life-partner. The irony klaxon was ringing like the Great Bell of Dhammazedi throughout.
Because Savage works closely with his leading actors to define the characters and stories for the I Am... series, it’s hard to know who’s at fault for the lightness of I Am Danielle (compared to last week’s I Am Victoria, for example). Certainly it didn’t feel as if there was much in the way of chemistry between Wright and Beckford, which in a film that set out to anatomise relationship chemistry has to go down as a defect. Mostly though, I think this was just the wrong story for this format. Stuff has to happen in TV drama. A plot arc shaped like a sine wave isn’t enough.
