EPISODE
The Virtues - Season 1
This series tells of Joseph, a man haunted by a bad past trying to forget him. Joseph boarded a boat bound for Ireland to face the childhood memories he had spent in the care system. Joseph meets Anna's sister, whom he has not seen in a long time. Anna decides to let Joseph stay and give him work in the family-owned construction company. Now, Joseph faces demons of his past when he meets Craig, a mysterious figure in which darkness and mystery are lost.
11 September 1987, Siauliai, Lithuanian SSR, USSR [now Lithuania]
7 February 1970, Rochdale, Lancashire, England, UK
December 14, 2003 in Dublin, Ireland
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
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
There are few actors you could trust with so much screen time, especially with such a pared back and naturalistic script.
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.
