Our House stars Tuppence Middleton and Martin Compston, which ought to give it a pretty decent vibe, but even these two could not save this slow and muddled series.

The situation in Our House couldn’t be more promising. Fi (Tuppence Middleton) returns to her home one day to find her house has been emptied of all her belongings and two strangers are moving in. They say they bought the house and have contracts and deeds to prove it.

Fi and her husband Bram (Martin Compston) lived there for years. They were raising their two boys in their perfect house. But now Bram cannot be found, nobody knows where the money the strangers paid for the house went, and nobody can help the frantic Fi figure out what happened.

That sounds like a setup for a tense and stirring mystery/thriller. It has the right ingredients as we learn through four episodes what happened and why. It isn’t told in a compelling way, however. A propulsive score with lots of unresolved chords screaming in the background would have helped, but the music wasn’t wonderful. The flashbacks were messy.

Fi and Bram were separated when the house was sold mysteriously. But they had agreed to keep it and continue to raise the boys there, with the adults alternating with them at the house.

There were helpful neighbors, including Merle (Weruche Opia). Merle was part of the reason for the separation, but part of a solution as well. While Fi and Bram were separated he was involved in a car accident. A woman named Wendy (Buket Kömür) was causing him problems about it. Fi started dating a guy named Toby (Rupert Penry-Jones), who was very interested in Fi’s house.

This was not an uplifting story. One bad judgement call after another happened to both Bram and Fi, which led to a tragic ending.

When you are under threat, do all the social rules break down?

The film’s answer wasn’t clear to me. Did the ending mean one should be honest no matter what and face the consequences of things without worrying about the effect on other people – specifically the children? Did it mean one should be open and honest with the people they love, but hide the truth from others? Did it mean there are horrible people out there who want nothing more than to explode your life for their own profit, no matter how good a person you are? Should the good people suffer while the bad people don’t?

Sheree Folkson directed the series, which was based on a novel by Louise Candlish. The 4 part British series is streaming on Peacock, PBS Masterpiece, The Roku Channel, and Tubi. You can also purchase it from several streamers.