A few years back it looked as if Nick Cave might pivot full-time into writing.
A few years back it looked as if Nick Cave might pivot full-time into writing.
His script for The Proposition was first-rate, and he followed it with a fine novel, The Death Of Bunny Munro and then another screenplay, Lawless. With the Bad Seeds on pause as he recorded with Grinderman, novels and screenwriting threatened to become his main creative focus.
But that’s where the trail went cold as Push The Sky Away launched a new era of the Bad Seeds. Perhaps this excellent TV adaptation of Bunny Munro by the makers of Baby Reindeer and The End Of The F***ing World will persuade him to return to the form.
Its success rests on an outstanding performance from Matt Smith as the titular Bunny, a sleazy, libidinous travelling salesman.
Bunny’s pathetic fecklessness would be bad enough if it hadn’t contributed to his wife’s suicide, but Smith provides just enough impish charm to keep the audience invested. After his wife’s death, Bunny hits the road with his son Bunny Junior (newcomer Rafael Mathé), promising to show him how to become a man and repeating a journey he took with his own father – another sleazy, libidinous travelling salesman.
At the same time, a serial killer is making his way across the UK, heading inevitably towards Bunny Munro, who cracks up in slow motion, seeing ghosts, drinking to excess and, worst of all, losing his magic power to pull and sell.
Post-Adolescence this is a timely adaptation as the book covers the same beat of toxic masculinity – the inherited misogyny and destructive behaviours that are passed down through the generations. It’s set in Brighton, Hove and other Sussex seaside towns, with the opening scene set against the destruction of Brighton’s West Pier by fire, a foreshadowing of impending apocalyptic collapse; Bunny is more interested in the seedy backstreets, estates and stripper pubs than the genteel squares and tourist promenades.
Cave originally wrote Bunny Munro as a screenplay before turning it into novel. Writer Pete Jackson was trusted with the reverse job, and his screenplay adheres closely to the novel. It was delivered under the watchful eye of Cave himself, an executive producer with a cameo in the final episode and consistent presence in more familiar form as he delivers the ominous theme song. This was written for the series with Warren Ellis, and the pair contributed other incidental music.
Otherwise, The Fall, The Cure, The Sonics, Linda Perhacs and the Bad Seeds provide the musical backdrop. Bunny Munro might be an arse, but he has great taste in music.
As ever with Cave, there are religious and supernatural elements amid eternal themes of redemption, guilt, death and forgiveness. Bunny Junior talks to his dead mother, the sky is full of starling murmurations and when Bunny introduces himself to female victims, he gives himself explanatory rabbit ears – an unwitting imitation of the horns worn by the satanic serial killer.
This element is handled well, adding to the atmosphere without derailing the whole enterprise.
The best moments cleave close to tragicomedy and social realism, particularly when the series explores the gap between the innocence of Bunny Junior and the amorality of Senior. Junior worships his dad, no matter how badly he behaves, something that is sad but also sweet. One of the best scenes sees Bunny Junior chatting amiably to a girl outside a house, while the sound of their parents having vigorous sex echoes round the estate.
There’s a streak to Cave’s writing that recalls the grotesquery of Martin Amis, Roald Dahl or Chaucer, a fascination with repulsive people and a delight in seeing them get their comeuppance.
Cave revels in Bunny’s depravity but longs to see him fall. That brings a touch of Mike Leigh and Alan Clarke to the script, an engaging humanity that’s sympathetic but ultimately judgemental. One wonders how it will compare with the adaptation of Cave’s wild 1989 novel, And The Ass Saw An Angel, which is also in the works.
The Death Of Bunny Munro is on Sky Atlantic
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