Best Interests TV review — heartbreaking choices in dramatic form

The doctors know the odds of recovery are negligible. The mother clings to statistical anomalies, radical alternatives, miracles. The child, meanwhile, lies unresponsive, hooked up to a machine: alive but not living. 

Best Interests is a fictional BBC drama about the all-too-real tragedy of having to decide whether to allow a gravely ill loved one to die. Written by Jack Thorne, the four-part mini-series offers both an affecting study of a family riven by conflicting instincts, and a thoughtful consideration of the ethical debates and medical and legal practices involved in such cases. Balanced and nuanced, it doesn’t advocate for one position or provide answers to the thorny questions it raises so much as inspire compassion for those confronted with a seemingly impossible choice.

Here it is parents-of-two Andrew and Nicci (Michael Sheen and Sharon Horgan). When their younger, preteen daughter Marnie (Niamh Moriarty) — who has lived with muscular dystrophy since infancy — suffers cardiac arrests and severe neurological damage, they’re informed that continuing treatment will only prolong her suffering. Nicci responds to this hopeless prognosis with magical thinking; she looks at the hospital bed and sees the girl who was smiling weeks ago, who will smile again in the future. But as she prepares to wage war against the courts, Andrew wonders whether fighting just means not being able to let go.

After weeks without sleep, all their unprocessed grief and unarticulated grievances burst out in an emotionally bruising argument. That they fall apart at the time they most need each other — and leave their other daughter Katie (Alison Oliver) feeling simultaneously isolated and caught between them — is the story’s second tragedy. It is beautifully acted by Sheen, who’s as assured and adept as you’d expect, and Horgan, who gives a stirringly unaffected performance in a challenging role as someone at once so resilient and so helpless.

But the show doesn’t treat Marnie as a prop for its stars to emote over. In flashback scenes we see the joy and love she experienced, making this not just a sorrowful story about her death, but also a more affirming one about life lived against the odds.

★★★★☆

Episodes 1 & 2 air on BBC1 on June 12-13 at 9pm; 3 & 4 air the following week on consecutive days. Streaming on BBC iPlayer

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