You may not already know me. My name, for all intents and purposes, is Metro. When I heard HBO was producing a 4 hour “miniseries” on the life of a fictional woman boasting familial anguish and emotional turmoil, my first thought was on anything other than the idea.
I am a man who loves a good story and a conclusive ending. Anyone who knows me knows this, so when I heard HBO was producing a 4 hour “miniseries” on a depressed middle aged woman and the struggles her life presented and represented…
Well it just so happens that perhaps I didn’t know myself as well as I thought I did, and I came to know Olive Kitteridge a bit more then I imagined I wanted to.
You see, the story that is Olive is the most opposite to what I could admire, yet for some reason, I watched all four hours with unwavering attention. In fact, I believe I watched four hours because I hoped, despite all odds, I would learn just who Olive Kitteridge actually was.
Of course, its a fictional story, but it seemed too true to be at times.
And after those four hours, I realized one thing. I learned nothing about Olive Kitteridge, yet learned volumes about myself.
Olive Kitteridge was a stern and unapproachable woman who never crossed from her ideals. She may not have represented the best of us, but she certainly represented the reality.
Olive Kitteridge was married to a man she seemed to seldom love; a man who was so intensely opposite her own mindset it was breathtaking.
After four hours, I realized this subtle yet vast sea of differences is what coexistence is. This journey we walked along with Olive and her husband and whomever else decided to join was just disguised as a television show. It was written and scored with actors and titles and dramatic pauses to deceive the viewer into thinking they were watching something they were meant to enjoy. This was never the case.
When I heard HBO was commissioning a four hour “miniseries” about a woman named Olive Kitteridge from the New England area, I never would have imagined I already knew the story.
Olive Kitteridge did not tell me she was a depressed, confused, and regretful woman. She did not alert me to the fact that her family was all she had, and that in the same breath was all her torment.
Olive Kitteridge did not impress upon me the idea that we take for granted that which we have until it is stolen from us. She did not warn me that some day, I will be as I was in the beginning: alone and fearful. She didn’t speak to me and say these things, but after four hours I knew.
You may not know me, and most of you never will. But if you know who Olive Kitteridge is, you might as well say you do.
She is a stubborn, head strong woman with too much compassion and too little patience and by the time I heard HBO was airing a four hour special about myself, the show had already ended.
Olive Kitteridge was not a story to be told in the conventional way. It was a chance to relate from within.
My name is Metro, and I have seen and heard many moving and emotional things. At face value, Olive Kitteridge is the furthest from this as ever conceived, yet after four hours, never could it be closer. I have seen and heard many things, but never have I known them.
Critics say its the best depiction of a normal life ever viewed on any screen, yet it featured a malformed spiteful woman inching closer to the gripping reality that once those closest were gone, no one else would put up with her.
Critics say its the most accurate depiction of a marriage and family life, yet it featured a family who believed depression was something to be inherited, and a son who managed to earn a PhD yet relied on psychiatric help to cope daily.
Critics say it told a true tale of aging insecurities alongside adapting to the life we are handed, yet it featured a woman who was breaths away from suicide then decided she’d rather not.
When I heard someone say they didn’t understand what they wasted four hours watching, I told them they shouldn’t have been watching.
There was nothing on screen that was meant to be seen. There was only a melancholy, regular woman and her family. There was nothing to watch, because we already knew exactly what we were seeing.
This is what made Olive Kitteridge so beautiful.
Hats off to HBO for taking a marvelous story and adding the dimension it needed to truly impact those who understood what they were viewing. If you have four hours free for self reflection, spend it watching this series.