Review: Come to 'Trespasses' for the steamy romance, and stay for the historical drama

PBS’ “Trespasses,” a four-part adaptation of Louise Kennedy’s 2022 debut novel airing Sundays at 10 p.m. on WNET/13, is a story of love in a time of cholera. (Catch up on Sunday’s premiere at pbs.org or on the PBS app.)

Set outside of Belfast in 1975 during The Troubles, it follows a clandestine affair between Cushla Lavery (Lola Petticrew, the serial killer in ”Furious”), a 24-year-old Catholic elementary school teacher, and Michael Agnew (Tom Cullen), an older, married Protestant barrister known for defending stone-throwing Catholic youth with an eye to keeping them out of the IRA.

Press materials stress the hot stuff — “scandalous,” “risqué,” “racy,” “torrid,” “titillating” and “steamy” — and while there is more than a modicum of modest sex scenes, the actual tone of the limited series, as adapted by Ailbhe Keogan and directed by Dawn Shadforth, is quite measured; it runs on talk. That’s not to say, given the setting and the setup, which betokens tragedy as surely as Romeo meeting Juliet, it doesn’t throb with tension, let’s say, three-quarters of the time.

Along with teaching, Cushla works for her brother, Eamonn (Martin McCann), at the family bar. The clientele includes Catholics and Protestants, united in their love of whiskey, lately including Michael.

She’s a ray of light; he’s magnetically mature. You may or may not buy the mutual attraction the series insists upon, or for that matter, trust the lovers’ motivations. But you will also be invited to change your mind. Because the camera never leaves Cushla’s side, anything there is to learn we learn along with her, which pays some dramatic dividends and means we’ll be forced to revise earlier judgments, usually for the better.

It’s a dangerous liaison. Michael, who is given to speechifying (and actual speechmaking), declares, “We cannot let the old bigots and the boys with guns tell us how to live . . . Otherwise nothing will ever change. Hate wins,” and, in a favorite refrain, “We must find the bravery to choose freedom over fear.” Cushla, however, notes that she comes “from a long line of Catholics that have survived by keeping their heads down and their mouths shut. Having a big opinion like yours, it’s a luxury I don’t have.”

Many shots are framed as if Cushla and Michael are being watched, whether or not they are, though sometimes they are, including by each other.

Cushla may not have the luxury of big opinions, but as an obviously good person, she’s unafraid to go against the grain in support of her student Davy McGeown (Daithi Ó Haragain), whose mother (Emily Taaffe) is Protestant and whose Catholic father, in the child’s words, has been “beat up for loving my mummy.” She’s also supportive of Davy’s bright older brother, Tommy (Conlaoch Gough-Cunningham), teetering on the edge after the attack on his father.

Above all, there is Cushla’s mother, Gina, played by Gillian Anderson, in a downward spiral since the death of her husband, some two years earlier. Introduced in a state of drunken collapse, Anderson — fearful, bitter, despairing, protective — is magnificent limning different levels of intoxication. But she’s even more impressive in her sober scenes, participating in the world beyond her couch, bringing food to the McGeowns and, finally, acting as a mother to Gina.

Keoghan has a gift for writing dialogue that feels native to the speaker and doesn’t land heavily on a point, and apart from the lovemaking interludes and a gauzy montage of a romantic trip to Dublin, Shadforth’s naturalistic direction enhances the drama by not underscoring it. She has an especially convincing way with party scenes — a school disco, a wedding, an art opening, a birthday party (at which Michael performs a soulful, foreshadowing version of the Carter Family’s “The Last Move For Me”) — where so many productions fall down.

Come for the promised steaminess. Stay for the rest of it.