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An already strained family deals with the unthinkable in this HBO mini-series.

A BBC produced mini-series that originally aired on HBO, Five Days consists of five hour-long episodes directed by Otto Bathurst and Simon Curtis, each representing a day that proves key to the resolution of a mysterious disappearance.

Day 1 introduces us to loads of characters, including Leanne (Christine Tremarco), her children and husband Matt (David Oyelowo), the detectives heading up the disappearance case, Barclay (Hugh Bonneville) and Foster (Janet McTeer) and potential suspect in the case, socially awkward loner Kyle (Rory Kinnear).  Leanne stops to buy flowers at a roadside peddler, and when she is out of sight of her children briefly as a truck passes, she disappears.  The children become alarmed as they watch the peddler frantically load up his wares and drive away, so they wander off on their own looking for their mum.

The children are picked up by Kyle, who takes them away in his panel van, even as the ripple effect of Leanne’s disappearance begins to be felt.  The Grandfather she was on her way to visit wonders at her absence, husband Matt tries to reach her.  By the end of the first day, the boy has been found by desperate police officers, though he has little to offer as to his sister’s whereabouts.

Day 3 begins to weave a larger picture, bringing into focus a lot of peripheral characters we met in the first episode, reporters, police officers, and Matt and Leanne’s extended family.  The daughter is found, recovered from a very unlikely area, which gives the police their first ‘real’ suspect, aside from Matt himself, as the husband is always considered something of a suspect in a disappearance.  Kyle is turned in by his own mother, who had noticed her son’s odd behavior, as well as a wound on his hand the day of the crime.

Day 28 sees Barclay being investigated by his superiors, standard procedure for a case that’s remained open with no real progress.  A body turns up, discovered by the owner of a dog shelter that Leanne visited with the children the day she disappeared, but is revealed to be that of a man, not a woman.

Day 33 brings a discovery in the nearby lake along with a confession from an unexpected source.  I won’t tell you any more, because the plot-threads really begin to tighten at this point, and I’d hate to ruin anything too revelatory about the conclusion of the series, which comes in the fifth and final episode, Day 79.

Five Days manages to juggle the storylines of roughly 6 to 8 (depending on who you consider to be paired up) different sets of characters very successfully without ignoring anyone’s story arc.  The series paints the overall story in fairly broad strokes, as there are obvious gaps in time between the episodes that are left up to the viewer to fill in the blanks of what has transpired in the interim. It’s quite intriguing to meet several different people in the first episode only to be left wondering what (if any) significance they have to the overall story, which gradually becomes less about Leanne and more about the effect the event has on everyone she had in her life.

The five hour running time moves along at a brisk pace, the only time I ever felt things got a little thin were at points of the 3rd and 5th installments, but the ending really races to the finish.  The only bonus material on this two disc set is a featurette with the writer of the series Gwyneth Hughes, who gives an interesting little chat about the origins of the story, and how she approached the narrative.

Worth a look for mystery fans and those who enjoy a very British approach to their police procedurals.

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