Now Streaming: GLORIA, Mother Must Solve the Mystery of the Disappearing Father

Think of the children.

Gloria
The six-episode series premieres Tuesday, June 21 in Canada and the U.S. on MHz Choice.

The day begins like any another.

Nursing a hangover from a celebratory night with friends, Gloria (Cécile Bois) waves goodbye to her husband, David (Michaël Cohen), takes her young daughters Alice and Rose to school, and prepares to spend the day with her infant son, Leo. A phone call is the first thread that leads to her entire life unraveling.

The phone call comes from Clarisse, an attorney at the family law firm that Gloria and David run together. Gloria must hustle down to court and argue a case in behalf of their neighbor Arthur, who has committed some petty crime. With barely a moment to gather her thoughts, she nonetheless argues brilliantly and keeps Arthur from going to jail.

The more pressing issue, though, is what happened to David to cause him to miss the trial? Gloria investigates, only to discover that in the eight months since her son was born and she has been away from the firm, David has, apparently, run it into the ground. Most of their clients have left, no new business has been found, and fellow attorney Clarisse is on the verge of bolting out of frustration. And where is David?

As the days tick by, Gloria (the series) becomes steadily more absorbing, as Gloria (the person) becomes increasingly fraught with unbridled anxiety and seething anger, made all the more complicated because she, unlike David and every other male protagonist in the history of films and television, must think of the children.

She loves her children dearly. She is a good mother. And she is furious at her husband for his inexplicable actions, which leaves her caring for the family under duress and under the disapproving eyes of nosy neighbors and, increasingly, the police, who launch an investigation under the command of Volton (Barbara Schulz), who may nurse a grudge against Gloria because Gloria and David represented Volton's husband in a custody case in which she lost her children.

Gloria has few allies. David's family is divided, with the men -- his retired father Richard (Bernard Le Coq), who founded the family law firm, and his brother, a police officer -- supporting Gloria, while the women -- David's mother and sister -- not, since they believe she married David only as a replacement after their friend Alex was killed in a tragic accident. Gloria's best friend, Chacha, rallies to her side, along with neighbor Arthur, formerly drug-addled and unreliable, who wants to help out too. Then there's Stan Baldini (JoeyStarr), another client who is slowly drawn into Gloria's life.

Standing alone for the first time in a long time, Gloria is an imperfect person who does not always do the right thing, or the expected thing. She struggles to hold it together under incredible pressure against forces attacking her on all sides. Cécile Bois conveys her pain, her sorrow, her brilliance, her strengths, her weaknesses, capturing the character's ferocious defense of her children and the reasons behind it.

Written by Bruno Dega and Jeanne Le Guillou, the series is an adaptation of the BBC series Keeping the Faith, created by Matthew Hall, which I've never seen, and so cannot offer any comparisons. In any event, the series is superbly plotted and exquisitely written to heighten the tension, explore the characters, and, finally, solve the mystery, all in six gripping episodes. Cécile Bois is great, and Gloria is a very good series.

Now Streaming covers international and indie genre films and TV shows that are available on legal streaming services.