TOTALLY COMPLETELY FINE: COMEDY ACQUIRED BY ITV FOR ITVX
Totally Completely Fine is a moving yet hopeful comedy about the mental health crisis, the complexities of grief and the ways our sadness can unite us. The full box set drops on ITVX from Monday 29th July and stars Thomasin McKenzie (Last Night in Soho, The Power of the Dog).
Vivian Cunningham’s life is a mess. Last week she accidentally burnt down her brother’s vegan food truck with a bacon-flavoured vape, and this week she’s inherited her grandfather’s coastal clifftop house and is tasked with helping people who come too close to the edge.
Additional cast includes John Noble (The Lord of the Rings), Contessa Treffone (The PM’s Daughter), Devon Terrell (Rap Shit), Brandon McClelland (The Other Guy) and Rowan Witt (Spreadsheet)..
When we first meet Vivian Cunningham (THOMASIN MCKENZIE) she’s about to end it all. She can’t pay her bills, likes alcohol more than she likes herself, and she’s just incinerated her brother’s vegan food truck with a dodgy vape. Her mind’s made up - and then the phone rings. The grandad she’s avoided for years has died in his sleep and left her his house.
When she arrives at the beach house on the edge of Dalton’s Crevice she isn’t impressed. It’s tiny, full of sand, and if you stepped too far into the backyard you might plummet to a very painful death. There doesn’t seem to be anything remarkable about the place at all — until she meets Amy (CONTESSA TREFFONE).
Amy’s just left her husband at the altar and is about to jump off the ledge behind the house. It soon becomes abundantly clear to Vivian that the place she’s inherited is by a suicide site. And her grandfather used to try and save every lost soul that passed through.
Though Vivian wants to turn and run, the overly familiar Amy insists she must embrace the cause. And when her brothers – John (ROWAN WITT) and Hendrix (BRANDON MCCLELLAND) – express a deep scepticism in their sister’s abilities to show human warmth, she’s unexpectedly determined.
Suddenly, this blunt, angry woman is talking people away from the ledge, and strangely enough, they’re responding to her chaotic, nihilistic brand of psychology. With the irritating Amy by her side, Vivian ‘saves’ a construction worker, a lonely retiree, a victim of domestic violence — and in the process, slowly starts to rebuild her life.
To everyone’s surprise she sobers up, faces the consequences of incinerating her brother’s food truck — even starts a dysfunctional relationship with her uptight neighbour, Dane (DEVON TERRELL). For the first time in a long time, Vivian’s hopeful for the future. Then she loses someone on the ledge.
Vivian’s first ‘loss’ at the crevice unearths things she’s been pushing down. When she was ten years old, she was the only survivor in a car accident with her parents. Vivian has always blamed herself for their deaths — and now, there’s another one on her hands. She quickly experiences the most severe depression she’s ever known, and after days in a drug and alcohol fuelled binge, ends up on the ledge she’s been fighting so hard to keep other people away from.
Totally Completely Fine is a television series about the mental health crisis and its complexities. It looks at family, legacy and ultimately asks: How many lives do we have to save, before we’ll save ourselves?
From Fremantle, Totally Completely Fine is a Stan Original series created and executive produced by Gretel Vella (The Great, A Sunburnt Christmas), who wrote alongside Keir Wilkins (Surviving Summer) and Emme Hoy (Sydney Theatre Company's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall).