Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Jodie Whittaker, Bella Ramsey, Tamara Lawrence, Siobhan Finneran, Louise Lee, Alicia Ford, Lisa Millett, Nicholas Nunn, Sophie Willan, Julie Graham, Kayla Meikle, Matilda Firth, Brody Griffiths, Isaac Lancel-Watkinson, Terri Reddin, Karen Henthorn, Conor McCarry, Jackie Jones, Danielle Henry, James Corrigan, Alexandra Monaghan, Cindy Humphrey, Michelle Butterly, Maimuna Memon, Alicia Brockenbrow, Christopher Middleton, Dana Hagjoo, Louise Willoughby, Faye McKeever, Angela Wynter, Philip Hill-Pearson.
The debate on whether prison works is one that is less than satisfactory, no clear-cut understanding, and when it comes to locking women up in jail that debate not only intensifies, but it also becomes polarised by certain social conditions to which some will see an equality of the system seeking retribution for crimes committed, no matter the cost to society and the public purse.
We don’t need to look too deeply to understand that there are some incredibly dangerous women that are rightly incarcerated for the heinous nature of their crimes, ones that are so shocking that it inverts what society recognises as the more nurturing and compassionate of the genders. They rightly, it could be argued, deserve nothing more than to spend their time away from the decency of others, to be judged as equally as their male counterparts…the issue is in proportion there are so few of these women who have stepped over the line that it makes every other woman locked in jail suffer more for their own lapses in personal judgement and lack of help from the system.
Jimmy McGovern is unafraid of exploration of the truth, of presenting it on screen to stoke debate, like Ken Loach, his principals and ability to dig deep into the psyche of the subject, and of Britian in general, and as he turns his eye, and that of co-writer Helen Black, to the those doing Time from the female perspective, the viewer can witness first hand just how prison does more harm to women, especially when it considers the variety of crimes they have been sent down for when in comparison to men.
Prison is meant to be a leveller, but in many cases, it is the state that has created the inequality and then punishes those who fall into their trap. This is shown certainly in the case of Jodie Whittaker’s character Orla. Like many other single parent families that have found the last decade or more one increased burden, and when you have to resort to bucking the system in your favour just to survive, as Orla commits initially by fiddling with the electric meter, jail may be a deterrent, but it does not solve the overwhelming problem created by government, all it does it create a person unafraid to take a chance again if life turns even harder.
Life is a microcosm of the system at large, it hones in the missed opportunities to educate, that some become driven to violence when they wouldn’t have ever considered such an act in the past to address their problems, and whilst male prisons hold a multitude of men who deserve their time behind bars, their crimes being amongst the most heinous, very few women are locked up for the similar offence, and those that are perhaps should be incarcerated, kept away from what they love until they repent and atone, but crimes that inconvenience government and big business’s money flow need to be looked at in a different and more productive way.
Huge compliments to Jimmy McGovern and Helen Black and their insistence of framing the narrative in such a way that it pinpoints the true blame at the door of those who seek the unjust in terms of rehabilitation. Time’s second series is an eye-opening reveal of the truth of female justice.
Ian D. Hall