I Am Ruth
The latest instalment of Dominic Savage’s anthology series I Am…, focuses on single mother Ruth and her volatile teenager Freya (played by real mother-daughter duo Kate Winslet and Mia Threapleton). While Ruth spends her Sunday mornings pedalling away highly motivated in spin class, Freya only leaves her bed to try on different outfits to snap selfies in, then crawls right back into her nest of blankets. Their interactions are strained: both women seem utterly incapable of finding the right words to make themselves heard by the other.
The 92-minute episode offers fleeting but intimate glimpses into the daily lives of this family, each member portrayed with a captivating authenticity. Ruth’s gushing over the instructor in the gym’s locker room is worded perfectly – completely relatable to her circumstances and simultaneously reminiscent of schoolgirl gossip: mother and daughter may be more alike than they think.
Candidly, I Am Ruth doesn’t claim to have any answers, neither to the eternal misunderstandings between adolescent children and their parents, nor to the new facets that growing up with social media can bring to this struggle. Still, a drop of bitterness is that the story concludes rather fast once Ruth sees the correlation between Freya’s smartphone and her depression. There is no real aftermath explored, nor a sense of overcoming conveyed.
Freya’s problems may seem to the viewer as inscrutable as they do to her mother: some of her behaviour can be read as obsessive-compulsive (frantically cleansing her face, as if that could make her feel more comfortable in her skin), while her rituals with food make an eating disorder stand to reason. It’s as if she all around seeks to find herself – even searching for a destructive coping mechanism.
The hand-held camera aids in conveying a sense of feeling one’s way as it follows the protagonists in close proximity. Winslet and Threapleton aren’t afraid to let the audience experience their raw vulnerability at close quarters, and it results in phenomenal performances from both actresses.
For fans of family drama, this show is not to be missed!
Selina Sondermann
I Am Ruth is released on Channel 4 on 8th December 2022.
Watch the trailer for I Am Ruth here:
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