For fifteen years in France, Susan and Christopher Edwards lived their dream, their escape from reality.
A marital idyll in which Susan imagined the increasingly poor present for both as "vie en rose" as long as it was possible.
Until the money ran out and Christopher secretly made a fateful phone call to his stepmother.
A call that Susan wasn't supposed to know about, she was "fragile", as Christopher later emphasized to the police again and again.
They had done something rather stupid (“something rather silly”) fifteen years ago, which is why there was no need to return to England, he asked for a loan, he asked with the politeness of a reserved gentleman.
The stepmother hands over her audio recording to the authorities.
Police officers despair when the couple's extradition is not possible, but Christopher begins corresponding with them voluntarily.
He promises to return.
Details of the trip will be coordinated.
In close correspondence with Gérard Depardieu
In the breathtaking four-part HBO-Sky co-production "Landscapers," the return of the Edwards is designed as a Monty Python-worthy mix-up sketch.
While the St. Pancras train station is cordoned off and occupied by heavily armed and mounted police, the inconspicuous couple simply strolls through in practical pensioner clothing.
A clerk and a librarian, barely noticeable.
Except in Susan's glamorous and melodramatic Cinemascope fantasies.
In this cinematic reality, in the Western world of Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, between "High Noon" and "The Last Metro", both are the greatest lovers in the world.
Affectionate each other unconditionally.
Come what may.
In 2014, Susan and Christopher Edwards were sentenced to life imprisonment for the so-called "Mansfield Murders".
The jury found it proven that both had shot and buried Susan's parents in the garden in order to get at their fortune, which they ended up using primarily for Hollywood memorabilia (including a signed Frank Sinatra autograph for more than 20,000 euros ) expenditure.
Prosecutors argued that both acted with cold-blooded intent but lived in a make-believe world.
Her loss of reality, however, was not rated as irresponsible.
For years, Christopher thought he was a close pen pal with Gérard Depardieu.
Indeed, he kept getting words of encouragement from him, deep insights into his life, words of caring and understanding - faked by Susan,
as a token of love.
So much for the factual circumstances of the Edwards.
Both have maintained their innocence to this day.
"Landscapers" is a true crime story that throws the rules of the genre, and even more, most cinematic conventions of depicting reality, into gear.
You should see all four episodes in the original English, if possible, in order to get to the truth, which you could end up despairing of.
Each episode plays with genres differently, breaks the "fourth wall", showcases black humor straight out of the picture book of classic British comic oddities, evokes "The Singing Detective", dismantles the rooms as studio sets and rebuilds them elsewhere, performs epic theatre, lets the participants step in and out of the crime reconstructions and discuss their roles with each other.
In the later episodes, even cameras become performers, grainy black-and-white authentications take over, which are deconstructed again with the next "plot point".
The reality of Susan's film classic fantasies has the same evidentiary value as the "True Crime" world of the police, in which the investigators (above all the great Kate O'Flynn as lead investigator Emma) are primarily constructors.
The guy living in the murdered man's house fifteen years later looks like a staged character created by documentary photographer Martin Parr.
Catherine Deneuve becomes Susan Edwards becomes Grace Kelly.
Gary Cooper aka Christopher Edwards pulls her to his chest: two against the rest of the world.
With all the deconstructions, leaps in time and shots, technical alienation and the constant changing of spaces, often the play with scenic narrowness and width, the attention in "Landscapers" concentrates on the main characters when viewing them.
On the supposedly inconspicuous murderous central double star.
Olivia Colman plays Susan and David Thewlis plays Christopher Edwards.
Two exceptional actors of their generation give an unbelievably differentiated emotional performance, especially towards the end, as the greatest lovers of all time.
At first, in France, Colman's smile might have been taken for obsessive and her quiet docility for a game of mystery, but sympathy soon develops, as it were against better reports of facts.
Colman and Thewlis succeed
that towards the end her characters not only appear human, but understandable.
The "True Crime" case becomes a "Love Story".
At the same time, it always remains clear that this is about enveloping the audience, about manipulation, trickery and cover-up.
Screenwriter Ed Sinclair (Olivia Colman's partner) and director Will Sharpe prudently leave open the question of which is truer, fiction in self-defense or a lie based on fact.
All trades contribute to the enlightening uncertainty in this production, but above all the chameleon-like soundtrack by Arthur Sharpe, the camera by Erik Wilson and the unbelievable montage by Elen Pierce Lewis.
Landscapers
, Thursdays at 10:20 p.m. in double episodes on Sky Atlantic and as a complete season on Sky Ticket and via Sky Q on demand.