Mint; Unchosen

“Having made her name with Scrapper – a funny, poignant and delightfully creative film about a grieving girl reunited with her estranged father – 31-year-old writer-director Charlotte Regan’s first proper TV project is patently the work of an auteur. A patchwork of VHS-style footage, surreal daydream sequences, gorgeously odd framing and special effects that stay on the right side of YA kookiness, Mint might be the most outrageously beautiful television show since Twin Peaks. I’ve certainly never witnessed a more visually stunning masturbation scene than the one in the opening episode. As Emma Laird’s Shannon fantasises about Arran, her new paramour, the lights of the surrounding suburbs flicker violently before sparks from industrial machinery arc across the screen and armed police jog silently into her family home.”

Rachel Aroesti, The Guardian

“This won’t be for everyone. Depending on your threshold for surrealism, Mint may occasionally feel like it’s floating pretentiously above its own plot. In a recent interview, Regan said that “growing up, all I saw was films where everyone working class was depressed and I wanted to make something with them happy”. Even in a story that primes us for tragedy, that instinct pulses through every scene. Between the violence and brooding machismo, there is unmitigated joy. Mint is how you make something ancient feel alive.”
Patrick Smith, The Independent

“We all know what happens in Romeo and Juliet but, again no spoilers, this story arc is slightly different. Emotionally it didn’t pack as much punch as it could have because I didn’t feel invested in the characters. But the performances are strong and Regan should be commended for trying something new, even if style sometimes triumphs over substance.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“This level of experimentation means that Mint is hit and miss. It throws everything at the screen and not all of it sticks, with too many holding shots of dark, satanic cooling towers and a reliance on grainy VHS footage to invoke nostalgia that can become tiresome. Personally, I found Lindsay Duncan’s mad matriarch too much, and Coyle-Larner’s supposedly irresistible love interest too little. But at a time when British TV drama is being swamped by the money and the sheer volume of US output, Mint does offer a way forward, which is to commit to young film-makers and let them off the leash. In a world of TV middle-ism, where both comedy and drama now seem to operate under a safety-first mandate, Mint at least makes its mark.”
Benji Wilson, Telegraph

“Why the first hour was divided into two episodes is anybody’s guess, though this is a device the Beeb is using more frequently. It did allow writer and director Charlotte Regan to concentrate on Shannon’s viewpoint in the opening half and Arran’s in the second. More intrusive was the heavy-handed emphasis on magical fantasy and metaphor. Every time Shannon looked at Arran, her eyes filled with sparkles. And whenever we saw the boy from her perspective, he was surrounded by a blaze of sparks that burst like champagne bubbles.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Unchosen is set in the world of a Christian splinter sect. Everyone lives simply in grace and harmony, following Christ’s teaching of peace and love for all humankind, with men and women sharing equally in domestic and other labour. They exist as shining lights for what is possible when you set aside the patriarchal nonsense and other accretions that gather around religions. Every episode is a delight and nothing much happens because everyone is living such a good and godly life. I jest! Unchosen is not here to break new ground. It is here to deliver by-numbers drama that has inexplicably attracted the talented likes of Siobhan Finneran and Christopher Eccleston to its cast and you should proceed with your expectations lowered.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“This sect is deeply repressive and punitive (no phones, no internet), its women are handmaids in headscarves and frocks, its leader (a typically gripping Christopher Eccleston) a hypocrite, preaching about God’s love while privately behaving in a decidedly loveless way. And what follows is an unpredictable, if ultimately melodramatic psychological drama motored by dark manipulations. Suffice to say, in the final episode we have another deluge and by then it’s downright biblical.”
James Jackson, The Times