This year, Magdalena Popławska appeared in an extraordinary role in the series “When Do We Get Married?” She played the role of a movie star named Lena, who has an affair with the main character Tośek (played by Eryk Kulm Jr), who is just starting out in the industry. This time, the actress plays a completely different character. Maja returns to her family home after many years, but it is not the return of a long trip, although during a job interview she claims to have traveled all over Cyprus. In fact, she was serving a long prison sentence for the murder of a school friend.
“Return to Life” (Polsat Box Go has made four of the twelve episodes available to journalists in advance) promises to be a far from obvious story that encourages us to explore the mystery of the heroine, about whom we know little. One objection that can be raised in the introduction, which also concerns other licensed Polsat productions, is the fact that the series “Back to Life” (like “Zdrada” or last year’s “House for Happiness”) is set in Poland, in a seaside town, but is not really rooted in any context. The script of the series is not adapted to Polish reality, only translated. This time, however, it is not as noticeable as in the case of previous productions by Polot Media.
Magdalena Popławska in a new role
The series starring Magdalena Popławska is captivating due to the heroine’s somewhat obscure story and makes us want to find out what really happened to Maja more than twenty years ago. Did her carelessness lead to the loss of another girl’s life? And is this the town’s only secret? There’s something intriguing about Mai. Even the scene where she awkwardly cuts her bangs, reminiscent of one of the best episodes of Lena Dunham’s “Girls,” makes us trust her and want to get to know her better.
Magdalena Popławska perfectly fits the role of a twenty-year-old girl in the body of a forty-year-old. Since Maja spent her early adulthood in confinement, she has no idea about social relations, technological changes and what it is like to be a mature woman. She still acts like a teenager. She moves into her old room, which has the aesthetics of the turn of the century. Thanks to this kind of approach, the creators do not take the story too seriously, but resort to several genres: comedy and drama.
A stranger in a small town?
Maja is an outcast because no one in the town wants to live next to a murderer. In a way, the heroine accepts the situation, but at times she rebels, almost like a teenager. She would like to return to her life, which was abruptly interrupted twenty years ago. After four episodes, we still know little about the town’s community, although we are already involved in the complicated relationships between Maja’s relatives and her neighbors.
Magdalena Popławska’s role is definitely the best, but Karolina’s character, played by Ewa Skibińska, also shows great promise (the actress deserves a lead role in a series about mature femininity, because she has a phenomenal supporting role in “Thaw”, which we will watch on Max from August 23, is also not enough). Bartłomiej Kasprzykowski as Darek, Maja’s ex-boyfriend, is somewhat reminiscent of his hero from “Camera Café”, which does not make this role very daring.
Is “Back to Life” worth watching?
The action moves slowly, but can we assume that in the twelfth episode the characters will live happily ever after? It’s hard to say. The backstory of the crime years ago and what happened to the heroine in prison are certainly intriguing. Why didn’t Maja overcome her trauma somehow? Did her time in prison teach her something and change her perception of the outside world? Will she put down roots somewhere?
In the first four episodes, we see Majka living her day-to-day life, looking for a job, looking for relationships, because after so much isolation she wants to connect with people. She is a bit aloof and disconnected from reality, but it is hard to blame her for that. She is an interesting type of heroine who starts her life two decades “too late”, but that does not mean she does not deserve happiness.
Popławska and Skibińska are definitely the brightest spots of “Return to Life”. There are no expressive male roles, but a lot can change in the next eight episodes of the series. Piotr Trojan, after his role in the series “Krew” (our review can be found here), once again plays a rather unexpressive character. The actor definitely deserves something more complex.
Why is Polsat so fond of formats? This is one of the biggest mysteries of television under Edward Miszczak. Will we see original Polish productions set in a contemporary context? Let’s hope so. For now, “Return to Life” seems to be an option for viewers looking for unusual comedy-dramas. The series was directed by Makary Janowski and the script was developed by: Beata Halastra, Ilona Łesyk-Moczulska, Małgorzata Pach-Galik and Michał Zasowski.
The series “Back to Life” premiered on Polsat Box Go.
