Kenneth Branagh's "Wallander" - Why I don't like it!

Readers of this blog will know that I am a fan of the Swedish dramatisations of the stories of Henning Mankell's fictional detective Kurt Wallander. The only one of the books I have read was the final one ("The Troubled Man" - reviewed earlier), which I found very disappointing.

Although I found the idea of making an English version of Wallander quite strange when the Swedish ones were so good, I decided to watch it and see what it was like. At first it seemed quite bizarre that the setting and props were all Swedish, but the characters were speaking with quite distinct English accents. It was also a bit unsettling that some of the characters and their relationships were quite different to the Swedish portrayals e.g., the prominent role of Wallander's father in the early episodes and the presentation of his daughter Linda, who was also a detective in the Swedish series and only became pregnant in the final book.

The stories are generally very tortured, 'noir' and depressing, athough at times the writers seem to try to infuse them with an element of hope. The crimes are often very violent and unsettling. Branagh's Wallander lacks conviction compared to the portrayal by Krister Henricksson. He is perpetually unshaven, often impetuously driving long distances alone through the bare and evocative southern Swedish countryside, and struggles to relate to colleagues, family or lovers in a meaningful way. There is something 'namby-pamby' about him - a certain timidity or blandness stemming from an apparent uncertainty about who he is other than a detective who is good at solving crimes. There is a sense that he wants to live in the world and be 'good with people' but is it that he doesn't know how or that he is simply incapable?

Wallander's colleagues seem stiff and unsure of how to deal with him, and they do not have the same range of idiosyncratic interest as their Swedish equivalents. It just all seems too anguished, and I am not drawn in and engaged - the plot just seems to go on for far too long.

Sadly SBS is running its repeats of the Swedish version in the early hours of the morning. However, several series are available on DVD at reasonable prices from places such as JB HiFi.