Even the most die-hard of armchair sleuths would be intimidated by a 300-minute mystery. While your schedule and your ass may be unable to take Five Days all in one sitting, your mind and your curiosity will want to. A production of the great BBC, the Gwyneth Hughes-penned miniseries is comprised of five one-hour episodes, each depicting a single day in the aftermath of a crime.
That crime is the sudden, shocking disappearance and presumed murder of Leanne Wellings (Christine Tremarco), a twice-married mother of three who vanishes while buying flowers from a roadside vendor, leaving her two youngest children waiting in the car. The kids make their way toward home, but they, too, are soon missing.
Hot-tempered husband/father Matt (David Oyelowo) is torn up at the prospect of losing his entire immediate family, while also considered a possible suspect by the authorities leading the investigation (Hugh Bonneville and Janet McTeer). Their widening net weaves in encounters with journalists, a potential pedophile, a nursing home resident (Edward Woodward) and one horny young woman (Sarah Smart) with a secret.
While full of twists and revelations, Hughes’ screenplay doesn’t ignore characterization, and there are plenty of people you get to know in that amount of time. The day-an-episode structure could be a gimmick, but she smartly avoids that, mostly in making those days not consecutive, which heightens the drama and asks viewers to fill in part of what happened in the time that elapsed. A second season, with a new story and characters, has yet to play the States. —Rod Lott
Otherwise, the first two-thirds stick pretty close to the book, even lifting entire scenes of dialogue. Unfortunately, what was punchy on the page drags in the hands of director Mikael Håfström, which does the abrupt, condensed ending no favors. In Siegel’s book, there were several endings, but each with a purpose, adding layer upon layer to an already suspenseful story. Here, it’s your standard revenge climax, and by cutting so much out of it, it’s bereft of the logic the author brought to it.
When he informs the others of his newfound power, one girl says, “Oh, wow! What are we waiting for?” and drives herself straight into a moving van. When she, too, resurrects not long after her funeral, the other members off themselves as well — in an absurdly comic sequence — by jumping off buildings and chaining bricks to their bodies as they swim. Meanwhile, the police are pissed because the now-true-to-their-name Living Dead delight in murdering innocents and destroying grocery stores. 
