★★★★★ 0/5

First Review: Love My Way

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You’d have to be living under a rock not to have heard of the string of awards lauded upon Love My Way.

Now three series old, new episodes screen on Foxtel from Monday night.

Famously co-produced by Claudia Karvan and John Edwards (both from Secret Life of Us), the new series picks up with Frankie (Karvan) and new husband Lewis Feingold (Ben Mendelsohn) setting up house, together with his teenage son Dylan (Sam Parsonson). Frankie has swapped her ocean views for a backdrop of the Sydney suburbs.

As part of the extended LMW family, Julia (Asher Keddie) and Charlie (Dan Wyllie) return, with their eye on an adjacent property. But it’s a little too close for comfort. Lewis isn’t sure he wants familiar friends quite so familiar.

Meanwhile gay son Dylan fends off admiration from his close female friend, who is the apple of his best mate’s eye. Circling above him is a custody tussle between his father and estranged wife, now living in a gay relationship herself.

Once again, the relationships of LMW are the heartbeat of the series. They rise and fall between joy, honesty and tension. Steeped in subtext, the emotions of the central characters are frequently suppressed by what each thinks they should say, rather than by a resolute directness. And then they blurt out their feelings, fuelled in anger or the heat of the moment. It’s a behavioural observation that is entirely believeable, and entirely Australian.

As with previous seasons of LMW the performances are roundly excellent. Mendelsohn shines in a role that reminds us he is all too rarely seen. Keddie’s Julia teeters on the brink of vulnerability and anal-retentiveness that shows she is no one-dimensional performer.

Joining this series is Justine Clarke as Julia’s ignored sister, who worked so wonderfully in Edwards’ The Surgeon.

Foxtel has been criticised for moving LMW to the Showtime Channel, not readily available in basic Foxtel packages. Slated in 2 hour double episodes, the upside is that this series has a filmic throughline not pandering to commercial breaks.

This shows every sign of maintaining the quality achieved by the first two series. If you have cable, don’t miss it.

Love My Way screens Mondays 8:30 on Showtime.

40 Responses

  1. Oh my Gosh.. Love My Way is the best series ever! I loved it more than Buffy and Sex in the city! It was so real and I fell in love with all the characters.. so many unanswered questions, do you think they will suprise us in a few years time and bring out series 4? I live in Sydney and loved seeing all the streets that I knew! Asher (Julia) is playing in the great series of Offspring now.. which I love watching weekly (except when commonwealth games were on and stole channel 10 for 2 whole weeks!!)
    Lets bring on LMW 4!!

  2. P.S – Just needed to say how great Dan Wylie was in this also.
    Been a fan since seeing him in Chopper & Stomper.
    He is amazing. Such a funny, deep plus light, passionate and always believable actor.

  3. Hi. John from Scotland here (Edinburgh).
    My little sister Charlene turned me on to LMW years back (she was a SLOU fan, you see) and we just managed to, at last, get the final & 3rd series on d.v.d last week and finished watching it a few days ago. Brilliant stuff again (give us some more?)

    I want to say how much I am happy that, although it ended too soon for us also, thankfully the producers wrapped up the last episode in a nice, semi-closured manner which was not too insulting to its loyal fans (ie; I loved Deadwood & Carnivale but the producers of those shows needed hung for how open ended & disrespectfully they killed those shows off). Carvan & Edwards, at least left me and my Sis, at the end of series 3, optimistic for imagining how the characters would develope if they were real people rather than leave us depressed or let down or guessing too much, by the cruel axe chop by the circle jerk, profit driven network heads that we are all too used to, as the mere peasant, not worthy passionate viewers. If Love My Way ever was made into a 4th series I think it would be like being re-united with a once lost but now found loved one.

    Love My Way actually changed me as a person and helped me bond with my loved ones realistically and better (and no, not in that saccharin nieve cheesy way but because it is the best show about family I have ever known to exist).
    Thank You Love My Way

  4. My sinceres David. I am sorry there was ever tone with you. I am just grieving as I immersed myself in the life of ‘Love My Way’, it was everything to me, my world, I even took a week of leave to watch the seasons. I want to hug the hearts of all of those suffering.

  5. Emma behave yourself now I know we are all really upset there will be no season 4 but you will always have three seasons to watch Julia over and over. P.S Julia is now appearing on Underbelly a tale of two tities cheers

  9. Please please please can they make Season 4 – this show is brilliant – and the actors are so believable – we need another season!! I have watched the first 3 seasons several times…

  10. I feel spoilt we get this show on free to air TV here in NZ. It has to be one of Australia’s finest productions to date. From the minute the theme comes on it sends tingles down my spine. It evokes so many different feelings for me & being an ex-Sydneysider I get constant lumps in my throat of nostalgia. Cannot believe there is no season 4..or am I getting the wrong end of the stick?? I can only hope..

  11. Yeah, awesome show…. i don’t know one person that doesn’t cry when lou dies!!shame they are not doing another one… and what is the go with Lewis’s dad telling Frankie that he was her father…???? i must have missed something. I thought maybe if there was a season 4, that they would find out they are half siblings or something.. seeing as she lost the baby and there was something going on there…. or maybe i just missed something??? anyway… agree with you all we want more!! 🙂

  12. Love My Way was the only reason I got pay TV – I just couldn’t wait for the DVDs for seasons 2 and 3 to come out. It is by far the best show on TV, and I’m devastated that there isn’t going to be a 4th season. It seems like such a crazy decision. I’m at a loss to understand why.

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