Sunday Review: The two slaps

Australian
Broadcasting
Corporation

National
Broadcasting
Corporation

The Slap (TV series): Australian (2011) and American (2015)

By Morris Dean

The Australian and American TV series The Slap (2011 and 2015, respectively) are so similar, it's fun and interesting to watch them both and see how they're different. The opening episode of both series portrays a birthday party at which an adult male administers a sound smack to someone else's misbehaving child, and both series explore the aftermath of that slap, going on for a total of eight episodes, each told from the point of view of a different character. The story, in both series, includes a man's near fling with his children's babysitter, incriminating photographs taken at the birthday party by a teenage boy who's a friend of the babysitter, a family friend's becoming pregnant by a man half her age, a family feud, a court case, and threats of breakup in a couple of marriages and several friendships. The Australian series is set around Melbourne, the American around New York City.
    The first episode is Hector's, whose 40th birthday party is being celebrated with his wife Aisha and their two children, his parents, his cousin Harry and Harry's wife, and a few friends of Hector and Aisha (more than a few in the Australian series) who are known to the rest of the family members, including Hugo, the child who is slapped (he's about five), and his permissive parents, artist Gary and laid-back Rosie, who is a close friend of Aisha. Aisha's point of view is used for one episode, and so is Rosie's.

Sophie Okonedo as Aisha

Thandie Newton as Aisha

In the Australian series, Aisha is Creole-Indian; in the American she's black.

    Rosie is played by the only actor common to each cast, Australian actress Melissa George. Rosie's episode comes as No. 5, in the Australian series, but as No. 7 in the American. The sequence varies for other characters as well, but it makes less difference than you might imagine. At least, I think so – I need to confess that my wife and I watched the series beginning with the American, as it was being broadcast, and alternating episode by episode back and forth with the Australian series (available via Netflix instant download) – a practice that I do not recommend. I occasionally confused things like, is Aisha a medical doctor, or a vet? Is Harry's business an expensive used-car dealership, or a mechanic shop? Is Gary a successful artist, or a wannabe? One thing I never got confused about: Rosie still breast-feeds Hugo.
    In both series, Hector is from a Greek family, and his cousin Harry has a quick temper (Hector and Aisha know that years earlier Harry hit his wife in the face hard enough to leave a scar – or break her jaw, depending on which series you're watching). Hector's father, Harry's uncle, is Manolis. Each of these three men's point of view governs an episode, in both series.

Jonathan LaPaglia as Hector

Peter Sarsgaard as Hector

Alex Dimitriades as Harry

Zachary Quinto as Harry

Lex Marinos as Manilos

Brian Cox as Manilos

    The other three characters whose points of view are used are:

• Connie, the baby-sitter both of Hector and Aisha's children and of Hugo

  

  

  Sophie Lowe as Connie

  Makenzie Leigh as Connie

• Anouk, the family friend (and friend of Rosie) who becomes pregnant by a man half her age (he's a singer in one series, an actor in the other, but neither enjoys the fatherhood)

  

  

  Essie Davis as Anouk

  Uma Thurman as Anouk

• Richie, the teenage boy, a friend of Connie's, who took the photographs in Episode 1

  

  

  Blake Davis as Richie

  Lucas Hedges as Richie

Richie's episode concludes the series and provides perhaps the most significant departure of the American series from the Australian – in my opinion, well worth waiting for; that is, after first watching the Australian series and then the first seven episodes of the American (apparently still catchable on the NBC website). The way the two series diverge in their definition of Richie's character is striking, and both are solid in their concept, if the American more satisfying (for me at least) in the way it uses Richie's story to recapitulate the series' main themes and reprise the characters' essential failings – and one character's triumph.

Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean