By Tania Phillips
Seven Types of Ambiguity,
ABC TV, 8.30pm, Thursday, 9.30pm
A message comes through to a businessman (Alex Dimitriades) that his son’s excursion will be late back to the school but when he arrives there is no sign of his son.
Tense music and images start this program and don’t let up. This is a gripping psychological mystery told from the shifting perspective of six characters following a complicated chain of events triggered by the disappearance of the boy.
Dimitriades is at his best as Joe – the father under pressure in the first episode.
The stellar cast includes Hugo Weaving, Alex Dimitriades, Xavier Samuel, Leeanna Walsman, Andrea Demetriades, Anthony Hayes and Susie Porter head up the compelling six-part drama that debuts on Thursday night.
Seven-year-old Sam Marin is taken from his school. Much to the relief of his parents Anna and Joe, Sam is found unharmed hours later and police arrest ex-schoolteacher, Simon Heywood.
But this is far from an open and shut case as it turns out that Simon is Anna’s ex-lover, and his neighbour and possible accomplice Angela has an intriguing connection to Joe.
Soon Simon’s psychiatrist and ally Dr Alex Klima, his lawyer Gina, and even Joe’s best mate Mitch get pulled into the vortex where relationships become entangled and moral dilemmas abound about who really is at fault.
In the end it’s not a matter of who took Sam, but a question of why.
This is based on the critically acclaimed novel ‘Seven Types of Ambiguity’ by award-winning author Elliot Perlman.
