Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

asimov-5 I won't go into any details because you should watch it and make up your mind.The acting is brilliant, you would hardly believe that Gemma Whelan was the same person that played Yara Greyjoy in "Game of Thrones".The story was basically play by numbers, you didn't really learn anything new if you saw this on the news.I do think this could have been a three parter. We didn't really see the aftermath other than a few shouty bits at the end. I really wanted to see the impact it had on the town at the end, but it seemed to end rather suddenly.It would have been nice to see what happened when she came out of prison, but we saw nothing of this.I will repeat however that the acting was top notch, but I was left a little disappointed with the story.

Theo Robertson The kidnapping of Shannon Mathews is a pitifully grim true life story of Modern Britain . Shannon was a nine year old child who went missing from the Moorside housing estate in Dewsbury . After a month long manhunt and frantic fundraising she was eventually found at the house of one Michael Donovon , uncle of Craig Meehan – the boyfriend of the kidnapped girl's mother, Karen Matthews.As the mystery quickly unravelled it turned out the "kidnapping" was a huge hoax carried out by Karen Matthews , Donovon and Meehan in order to raise money for themselves and they all ended up in jail for it . This two part BBC drama tells the story of the case I came in to this drama with an open mind but found myself rather irritated the way the story is told . The narrative is seen through the eyes of Matthews friend Julie Bushby as she unfailing pulls out all the stops to find the lost child and coming to terms with the betrayal of friendship and friendship continuing in the face of adversity and according to a caption at the end Bushby still stayed in contact while Matthews served her sentence You have to question could the story not have been told better ? A case like this is ripe with ready made black comedy . For example the real life case saw a psychic called Joe Power who somewhat prophetically claimed someone called "Mike" might be behind the kidnapping . "Might" as in "Might not be involved" if Joe had to guard his back as in this case by not noticing the abduction was faked . On a similar note the case was directly inspired by the case of Madeleine McCann whose disappearance led to millions of pounds being raised by a gullible , naïve public but this aspect as a motive is entirely downplayed for whatever reason . It is a relatively well made and acted drama but trying to paint greedy , ignorant , selfish lumpen proles who'd traumatized their own kin in order to make money in a sympathetic light doesn't work for me I'm afraid

Prismark10 The Moorside tells the story of the staged abduction of Shannon Matthews from the viewpoint of Julie Bushby, the person who led the community effort to find the 9 year old Dewsbury schoolgirl. As she tells the press: 'When chips are down and one of us has a problem, we are all there to help, we stand shoulder to shoulder with one another, we will never give up hope'The rallying cry felt hollow in this docudrama as we knew Shannon's mother was involved in this bizarre abduction. Even when Shannon went missing, there was an outcry that people living in council estates did not merit the sensitive media attention that the parents of Madeline McCann had got a year earlier.The first episode focuses on Karen Matthews and her dysfunctional family. She had children from several men, her present partner seems to be more interested in surfing the internet. Some of the other relatives crave the media attention. Karen herself comes across as dimwitted and maybe even manipulative as well. Suspicions are aroused early when she starts dancing to a ringtone of a mobile phone.By the end of the first episode, Shannon is found under the bed of Karen's boyfriend's uncle. A cack-handed stunt to get money from the media it seems.In the second episode the police now turn their attention towards Karen. Her friends and neighbours who rallied for her now have doubts about her story. The community now vilify Karen Matthews but Julie Bushby saw her as weak, a symptom of a broken Britain where too many women from an early age were let down by men. In the drama Julie and one of Karen's neighbour talk about how both were sexually abused as youngsters.The drama was strongly acted by the leads, Gemma Whelan, Sian Brooke and Sheridan Smith but I felt it still lacked freshness, too much about it that delved on 'council house scum.' I can imagine that wounds are still raw in parts of Dewsbury and although we do not see the character of Shannon, I could not help thinking that this drama did not do her much good given she is now 18 years old.

ianlouisiana This sad episode is perhaps too recent to view objectively. The deeply flawed Karen Matthews was nobody's idea of a paragon of the maternal virtues but surely she could not have been as stupid as this production has portrayed her.Nor can her friends have been so sheep - like,just ready for someone - anyone - to tell them what to do. Obligingly along comes Miss S.Smith as a gobby advocate for the Moorside who sees the opportunity for what she sees as being helpful as well as seizing her 15 minutes at the same time as winding up the Old Bill and bullying her neighbours into doing her wishes without really thinking about the possibility that she might be harming the child's chance of being found alive. Puffy eyed and heavy of face,Miss Smith is a stranger to restraint as the single mother brow - beating and threatening her way to a TV spot as the hunt for the child grows wider. Only her friend Natalie(excellent Miss S.Brooke) is willing to stand up to her. As we all know the outcome of this incident there was no tension,merely a vague anxiety about what Miss Smith might do when she finds out that she(and all the others)has been played for a mug. Best performance by far is by Miss S.Finneran as this Detective who is unfortunate enough to be Family Liaison. The guy who plays Karen Matthews' partner looked so much like Radar O' Reilly that I giggled every time he came on screen.Presumably not the affect he was supposed to create. I understand the intention of "The Moorside" was to present a more positive image for the residents,but I'm afraid that in that it has not succeeded.