EPISODE
The Virtues - Season 1
Joseph's life turns into a bad one because he is obsessed with a past he has tried to forget so much to no avail. To forget those memories, Joseph decided to board a boat bound for Ireland to face the memories of his past. In Ireland, Joseph meets the sister he has not seen since childhood, Anna. Anna persuades her husband to allow Joseph to stay and to give him a job. Joseph, in his new work, encounters demons of his past when he meets Craig, a mysterious figure that changes Joseph's course.
7 February 1970, Rochdale, Lancashire, England, UK
3 November 1957, Liverpool, England, UK
3 August 1973, Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK
20 October 1959, Dublin, Ireland
11 September 1987, Siauliai, Lithuanian SSR, USSR [now Lithuania]
December 14, 2003 in Dublin, Ireland
May 16, 2019
In Joseph, director Shane Meadows, co-writer Jack Thorne and actor Stephen Graham have created a character strobing with vulnerability whose struggles feel achingly real.
May 16, 2019
Unspoken pain infuses every scene, every gesture and expression from Graham and in doing so lays the foundations, surely, to do justice to the suffering of victims everywhere.
May 16, 2019
Graham is an actor of raw emotional power, nakedly honest and unpredictable, but I spent whole minutes of the first episode wanting to be anywhere else but in a room with him, as he suffered and tried to deal with his suffering.
May 16, 2019
It's not an easy watch, as much for the feeling of rubbernecking a private hell as for its gut-puking moments. But it's that very intimacy that makes The Virtues special.
May 16, 2019
The pacing is extraordinary, a veering death drive on a road with no finish line in sight.
May 16, 2019
There are few actors you could trust with so much screen time, especially with such a pared back and naturalistic script.
