Best Interests review: A hard-hitting but vital ethical conundrum

• 📺 Where to watch Best Interests: BBC One from 12 June
  

• ⭐️ Our rating: 4/5
  

• 🍿 Watch it if you liked: Bad Sisters, The Split, The Dry
  

• 🎭 Who's in it?: Michael Sheen, Sharon Horgan, Alison Oliver, Niamh Moriarty
  

• ⏰ How long is it? 4 x 50 minute episodes
  

• 📖 What’s it about? A family is driven apart by having to make choices no parent would ever want to make.

Hard-hitting new BBC series Best Interests — written by hardest working man in TV Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials) — explores the moral and ethical debates around terminal illness.

Andrew (Michael Sheen) and Nicci (Sharon Horgan) have a twelve-year-old daughter (Niamh Moriarty) with muscular dystrophy, who is progressively getting worse.

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Breathing issues, a compromised immune system, and seizures are merely the tip of an extensive iceberg. Fragile, innocent, and perpetually optimistic – Marnie is wrapped in a cocoon by her doting parents who devote their lives to keeping their little girl safe.

Through a consistent use of flashback sequences intertwined with present day predicaments, writer Jack Thorne fills in emotional back story, provides familial context, and gradually explores every aspect.

With a final seizure closing the door on any quality of life, doctors suggest ending her treatment and moving towards palliative care, ensuring that Marnie remains comfortable up until the end. It's a pivotal choice involving three parties, each with their own personal stake, either driven by an ethical conscience, moral obligation, or parental duty.

How audiences react and engage with Best Interests will depend very much on their emotional standpoint. From the outset, it would seem obvious where both Andrew and Nicci fall on this subject, as they both love their daughter dearly and want what is best for her.

However, once the emotional strain starts to take its toll on these people, relationships fracture, divisions emerge, and audiences are dragged down a rabbit hole of recriminations. Marnie is no longer seen as an individual, but rather a figurehead for something far larger that threatens to tear this family apart.

At the centre of this maelstrom are two commanding performances from Michael Sheen (Good Omens) and Sharon Horgan (Bad Sisters) who convincingly chart the course of their relationship over decades, up until this pivotal point in a marriage shaped by their daughter Marnie.

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This is not an easy watch, as Best Interests never seeks to tread lightly around topics or cut away from the uncomfortable nature of this conundrum. Packing an emotional punch from the opening frame and rarely relenting thereafter, Jack Thorne, Michael Sheen, and Sharon Horgan offer up a slice of landmark drama, that openly addresses a contentious area of concern without compromise.

Best Interests premieres on BBC One on Monday 12 June at 9pm, with episode 2 airing the following day on Tuesday 13 June.

Watch a trailer for Best Interests