Excellent mini-series about a young man's search for the truth in his family's past and what it had to do with his uncle's disappearance some years before. It is about closure but also growing up and moving on in one's life. Hard to pick a stand-out in a cast that fits the characters with great precision.Perhaps the real star is the landscapes of Argyll in Scotland. I was always disappointed when filming went inside, except that the script was so strong and acting so meticulous, you were always entertained and stimulated.Peter Capaldi and Dougray Scott went on to bigger things. Bill Paterson and Stella Gonet are solid,established Scottish actors whose standards never drop and Valerie Edmond has always been a shining light. The younger actors were excellent as well.

Iain Banks novel is set indifferent time zones and its complex narrative deemed it to be unfilmable.The television adaptation has a dark, comic edge which opens with the death of the family matriarch who explodes during her funeral ceremony.Prentice McHoan is affected by family tragedy. His uncle Rory has been missing for seven years, his aunt died in a road accident and now his grandmother. He does not get on with his father who is agnostic whilst Prentice wants some kind of spiritual faith.Spurred on by his grandmother, he seeks out to find out as to what happened to his uncle Rory, deal with his issues that he has with his father, lusts after a distant cousin of his, who he deems to be his perfect woman and then there is his more successful brother played by Doughtay Scott who is and up and coming comedian and has no issues in attracting women.Joseph McFadden gives a star making performance and ably supported by the actors playing the various members of the McHoan clan. Joes has enough wide eyed innocence and also some grit whilst he tries to put the puzzle together over the course of the series with the aid of his uncle Rory who appears in his innermost thoughts.The series is funny, tragic, dramatic, includes breathtaking scenery, plenty of family closeness that you actually gets you to be blindsided as you forget that a mystery has to be dealt with potential sinister undertones. Its an excellent adaptation, well lit and filmed.Uncle Rory played by what he has now become,a Scottish legend Peter Capaldi appears in flashback scenes as well as in Prentice's innermost thoughts to drive the story on and resolve the mystery of what happened to him.

Sometimes a screen version of a story recognises that it doesn't have to be a slavish copy of the book in order to do it justice. Sometimes it remembers to rely on visuals rather than words. This mini-series utilised a very clever plot device to highlight Prentice's confusion, questions and internal dialogue.The darkly comic story opens up at the funeral of Prentice's grandmother who subsequently explodes. This bizarre event sets the tone for the rest of the four episodes and lets you know right away, that you're not watching a standard mystery.But more relevantly... shortly before Granny died, she set Prentice a little task. Find out what happened to Uncle Rory. Now, Rory has been missing for about seven years now and nobody knows where he is. He got on his motorbike one day and drove off - never to be seen again. Various family members have their theories on what happened to him, but they are a quirky and strange bunch with their own secrets, so their thoughts are open to interpretation, anyway. And the rest of the clues are present in Rory's memoirs which are haphazard, random and - due to his disappearance - incomplete.So the story gradually unwinds. The viewer never knows any more or less than Prentice knows himself and he is unwilling to face some of the less savoury details. Further events, funerals and family gatherings, together with Rory's own notes inspire flashbacks and memories that flesh out all the characters, provide fresh suspicions and theories and ultimately provides one of those "Ooohh" moments where everything finally falls into place. I mean it. You might well find yourself shouting at Prentiss to "Make the #*$ing connections!" I certainly did.Watch the series with a bunch of friends. Pause the DVD after every episode. Put the kettle on (or open some more beers or - if you really want to savour the mood - pour some whisky), recap what happened with each other, exchange theories and then settle back for the next instalment. Then later, you might even be inspired to read the book.Very recommended.

My wife bought me this for Xmas and we've just finished watching it again. As something of a perfectionist when it comes to adaptations of books I have read (Starship Troopers anybody), I have to say that this one tops the list. If I have to criticise it at all, I'd only say that I'd expected Prentice and Ashley to both be blond. Suffice it to say that this is the only fault I can find both with an exceptional adaptation and a fine set of performances by the whole cast in general and Joseph McFadden in particular.