What a beautiful movie!

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

It'd be a lot more palatable if they didn't continually light up and dwell, linger, on cigarette smoking. Surely financed by a tobacco group. 'Authentic' they say. I say, if the story was any good, it wouldn't need that so-called (smoking-justifying) 'authenticity'. Ruins it for me.

The new BBC drama 'Quirke' takes us into postwar Ireland - seedy, drunken, dominated by the twin evils of the church and the wealthy and corrupt. It's a somewhat clichéd view, made palatable by the series' muted tone, although at times in the first episode I struggled to follow the softly spoken dialogue and relatively (for a murder drama) understated plot. Unlike many such series, there's an overall narrative as well as individual stories; the fact that Quirke's niece has a separate, personal connection to all three murders reduces the overall plausibility. The cast is an impressive one, but the scripts don't really call on them to do anything extraordinary; the detail with which their characters' feelings are observed is often weaker than its symbolic depiction (endless booze and cigarettes). To me, 'Quirke' fell between two stools: too low-key and gloomy to be fun family entertainment, but not truly deep either.

How low is the lowest common denominator in this. John Banville seemed to me to be a writer of Ireland past and present that you might learn something from. Holy mother of God, Quirke is terrible. I've never seen such a transparent plot line, such poor and shallow acting from stellar marquee names, so many faux hospital passes. Can I write the next episode - just gotta check Wikipedia for some autopsy references and come up with a 'startling' revelation regarding a hard drinking long lost relative of some sort or the other and then mix it up with production values ranging from low to medium allied with an occasional exotic non-1950's sounding name and they're ye are Quirke , working title Dublin Dud.

Beautifully shot and atmospheric, though the dark scenes get a bit tedious, good acting all round but the characters are wooden. The script is banal, nobody says anything insightful or cute. Inappropriate responses. In episode two the intimidation and murder in the first episode seems to be forgotten. The continuity is terrible you keep wondering "who is this character now", new characters pop into the episodes fully formed and you're sure you must have missed something previously. This all comes from trying to be too clever. And his daughter's assertion on finding out he's her dad "but I loved you Quirke" just dropped like a lead balloon. Really disappointing.