I'll make this short. Gyllenhall's Nessa is smug, unlikeable and extrenely irritating. Her brother is shifty and suspicious, given to bouts of passive/aggressive resentful behaviour for no good reason I can see. The housekeeper doesn't seem to care that much about getting her kidnapped son back and all of them put plenty of energy into not helping the police. We get it - they have secrets, even from each other, but .... who cares!The only one behaving like a normal person is the sister-in-law, who is incredulous, very impatient, and clearly wondering what kind of stupid family she has married into. She is the only one I felt any sympathy for, the others being creepy, evasive and apparently uncaring. I detested them all and did not get beyond episode 3 - not because it was boring and slow, which it certainly was, but because I just didn't care about their silly secrets and nor did I believe they were important enough to keep, certainly not at the expense of a little boy.The nonsensiccal behaviour of the FBI woman (who ever hailed a cab in London that had an American driver?) the childish British security services, the silly gung-ho bodyguard with more detecting capabilities than Sherlock Holmes,, the extremely unprofessional nurse, the bereaved wife that happily swaps the life of her husband for fifteen fahasand pahnds ... who behaves like this? Really? It was all so utterly stupid.Verdict based on almost 3 episodes - Ghastly rubbish which should have been buried in the desert never to be unearthed. I know everyone that liked it said it picks up after 4 episodes but do the characters become more likeable and less annoying? Probably not.

Usually, I tend to skip movies or series on sensitive and politicized issues as they usually emanate from black-and-white approach and simplified views or solution proposals. So, before my respective decision, I try to obtain a lot of background material and diverse opinions, meaning that I do not watch them "bright and early". This was also the case with The Honourable Woman that was revealed in 2014 and honored in 2015.And from the first episodes, I was pleasantly surprised and ravished, both performance-wise and plot-wise. True, that Maggie Gyllenhaal as Nessa Stein was wonderful and fully deserved her Golden Globe Award, but I am somewhat puzzled that Stephen Rea's great performance was not too much noticed; he is an otherwise wonderful actor and his performance here as Sir Hugh Hayden-Hoyle was front-ranking as well, particularly under dialogs, including with Gyllenhaal; Rea does really know how to express profundity using minimalistic manners and scenes. Of course, all other performances were at least good as well, but they spent less time on screen.The plot is captivating, at times a bit over-sophisticated and some scenes protracted, but the versatility and tensions are present and the storyline and values expressed go beyond confined Israeli-Palestinian issues. There are many twists and turns, "good guys die too", and the volume of 8 episodes lets all this enjoy in a relatively short time- frame.All in all, a good series, recommended even to those not particularly fond of pending political issues. Even just following the dialogs and scenes with leading characters provide a memorable series experience.

Well this tarnishes just about everyone government-wise. It most likely represents what is probably very true.....how things work. Betrayal, intrigue, human endeavor, are all covered. The character of Nessa Stein is so well played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. The series is almost emotionally draining. So many difficult things confronted.The things that are taken for granted are kind of interesting. Are we owners of or parents or grandparents actions? If we accept the state of being of circumstances, does that mean we agree with them? Highly recommended. Worth watching all the way through.I am curious how the series is received by British, Arabic, Israeli, and other US folks.As you go through the series, you may want to observe what is represented as true, what is represented as given, and at the end of the series, how folks are portrayed at that point. It tells me about the folks who produced this and what they believe, because although the show appears to be open, freely representing all, in the end, they show common stereotypes, in my opinion. I am not criticizing it, I don't think, but it is not as open as it appears. I still highly recommend it.

I finally got to the end of this tortuous eight-part BBC series with my head spinning and my sympathies unengaged. An obviously highly topical storyline centring on the Israel/Palestine conflict, for me it was a dissatisfying mix of convoluted plotting, unsettling situations, periodic bursts of unsavoury actions, grisly killings and right-on politics, at one point having us believe that the US government under any circumstances would drop its support of Israel's right to exist in the United Nations.I see Maggie Gylenhaal getting praised to the skies in the press for her part but I found her would-be martyrdom unconvincing. She doesn't even report her second rapist to the authorities, instead supposedly gratifying herself with telling the offender's wife instead. That's taking self sacrifice too far. Apart from delivering a spot-on English accent, she gets to run a lot, cry a lot, be silent a lot and undress a lot, especially to enter her sci-fi type special toilet, the purpose of which escaped me. None of the rest of the cast really convinced me in their roles either, none less so than Stephen Rea in a very mannered style of acting, playing the Smiley-esque spymaster always one step behind the action while at the same time pursuing his ex-wife like a lovesick teenager.For some episodes I thought I was actually getting somewhere with the plot only to be thrown into confusion by the next one. I do get that Middle-east politics are at times impenetrably dense and complicated but with no liking or sympathy for Gylenhaal's Nessa Stein character or her elder brother, I have to say it took a lot of effort to watch it all the way through to the end.Maybe it's just that I don't like or condone depictions of terrorism whether small or large-scale, or attempts to get inside the heads of ruthless political terrorists, but with no one figure commanding my attention never mind my sympathy, I was quite pleased just to make it to the end. Frankly, it just never felt real at any point and as the plot moved into ever-increasing circles failed to take me with it along the way.