

The new season also gave the viewership of previous seasons a boost, with all three landing in the Netflix Top 10 for English-language series for the week of May 23-29. The series made it into the Top 10 in all 93 countries where Netflix is tracking viewership. Stranger Things season 4 reached #1 in 83 countries, another premiere weekend record. That far surpassed the 193 million hours that were viewed of Bridgerton season 2 over its premiere weekend. Deadline reports that Stranger Things season 4 had the biggest premiere weekend in the history of Netflix original series, with 286.79 million hours viewed. "Old people are just pretending to be insightful to give you the impression that life adds up to something meaningful and comprehensible." She does have some advice, though, sounding just like my own mother: send handwritten thank you notes and be on time.About three years went by between the premieres of Stranger Things seasons 3 and 4, and Netflix subscribers were clearly anxious to catch up with the show’s characters by the time the new season was released. She says she has no life-illuminating wisdom to share.

Jonathan is touchy and uncommunicative with his parents, but he half-jokingly, only half, asks Lily for life advice he can "remember in crucial moments." Lily has no fears and no second thoughts about her decision, but in this moment with Jonathan, as he decorates the Christmas tree, we can glimpse her sorrow that she will not be around for those crucial moments. There is a fine conversation between grandmother and grandson. More is revealed in the brief "uh, do we hug each other?" greetings of the arrivals than in the conversations when various pairings go off to argue, from passive-aggressive to just plain aggressive ("Give Mom this one weekend without having the whole world revolve around you."). Each person is given one characteristic, Smurf-style: the caretaker, the screw-up, the control freak, the "fun fact!" guy.ĭirector Roger Michell finds some nicely-observed moments amid the heavy-handed dialogue ("Once we set a date I stopped thinking about dying and started thinking about living") and one-dimensional characters. Elisabeth ( Lindsay Duncan), Lily's best friend since college, is there, too. Younger daughter Anna is late, stopping to smoke some weed before seeing her family, and bringing with her an unannounced companion, her on-again, off-again romantic partner, Chris ( Bex Taylor-Klaus). "I can't wait to see what the stores recommend for an event like this," Lily says dryly as she struggles to open it. First is daughter Jennifer, arriving early with her husband, Michael ( Rainn Wilson) and son Jonathan ( Anson Boon). His dorky dancing is an old joke between them. Paul joins in, and they laugh companionably. Paul is listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations as he makes breakfast, and Lily impishly switches the channel to an EDM song and starts to spin as well as she can. She insists that she can get ready by herself, though her left hand is permanently clenched and she has to use her right hand to lift her legs so she can put her slippers on. An alarm clock goes off and an outstretched hand reaches up into the frame. It opens with Lily's husband Paul ( Sam Neill) looking out at the water, then tending to chickens and plants accompanied by sorrowful music. This is very much the Hollywood version, with Oscar-winning actresses, sad violins on the score signaling serious drama, and a gorgeous setting, the English shore standing in for Connecticut. "Blackbird" is a remake of the 2014 Danish film "Silent Heart," both with screenplays by Christian Torpe.
