War and Pwhat?
The Night Manager - episode 1
Watched this live over AOS. I may make the same call next week, becauseit is ravishing to look at, set in gorgeous hotels etc that I will never afford and - is this a habit of the director’s? - close-ups of the eye.
The night manager is Jonathan Pine (not Pine, Jonathan Pine) as played by Tom Hiddleston - how nice to see him on prime-time TV before the internet gives him the role of bond. I thought they did a good job on establishing the character, ex-soldier, honourable, not immune to attention from the ladies - IN OVER HIS HEAD - and yet he lied and lied and just about held it together. I loved the accidentally telling detail that he didn’t put the cigarette out because he didn’t respect Englishmen who deal in napalm etc and ordered the death of ‘his Sophie/Samira’. But Roper didn’t read it in that way.
Also, because he was a night manager, there were a few lines that could be read as Only Lovers Left Alive references, which amused me.
Also two, I can see why ex-soldiers would make really good hotel managers.
Anyway, it’s a really good cast, Laurie being posher than he actually is, and satisfying anyone who wished he’d done more in Spooks, instead of going off and doing House; Olivia Colman (who I suspect could undercut all the other actors), Tom Hollander and I was looking forward to see Debicki in something other than MUNCLE. She’s definitely striking.
My one big problem was that, despite being directed by a woman, it was clearly written by a man (men, if you take in LeCarre and the adapter) when it came to Sophie. I don’t know if it’s cultural biases on my part and the writers really thought about what it might be like to be a beautiful Egyptian woman (but Samira, a Sophie probably would have had a better plan than find another protector and let him do something about the weapons list, at least when it came to an escape route). I get the feeling that the chaps were thinking more about the hero getting to play the white knight, which made Samira a damsel - property, essentially, abused by the bad guy, let down by the good guy, and even if Pine is representing the UK to some degree - nope, it’s still chauvinist.
And it seems that the same pattern will be followed by Debicki’s character...
They’re just lucky that Colman’s Angela is being dogged, fierce and honourable and not a sexual object. And guess what, she was originally written as a man!? (So far, this fails the Bechdel test, as women mumbling to each other as they’re herded out of the room where the men will talk business doesn’t count.)
Showing us Pine seeing/imagining the ghost of Sophie was just schlocky.
But things have been established, so let’s watch Hiddleston and the others play how deep Pine will go in five star hotel land.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/221582.html.
Watched this live over AOS. I may make the same call next week, becauseit is ravishing to look at, set in gorgeous hotels etc that I will never afford and - is this a habit of the director’s? - close-ups of the eye.
The night manager is Jonathan Pine (not Pine, Jonathan Pine) as played by Tom Hiddleston - how nice to see him on prime-time TV before the internet gives him the role of bond. I thought they did a good job on establishing the character, ex-soldier, honourable, not immune to attention from the ladies - IN OVER HIS HEAD - and yet he lied and lied and just about held it together. I loved the accidentally telling detail that he didn’t put the cigarette out because he didn’t respect Englishmen who deal in napalm etc and ordered the death of ‘his Sophie/Samira’. But Roper didn’t read it in that way.
Also, because he was a night manager, there were a few lines that could be read as Only Lovers Left Alive references, which amused me.
Also two, I can see why ex-soldiers would make really good hotel managers.
Anyway, it’s a really good cast, Laurie being posher than he actually is, and satisfying anyone who wished he’d done more in Spooks, instead of going off and doing House; Olivia Colman (who I suspect could undercut all the other actors), Tom Hollander and I was looking forward to see Debicki in something other than MUNCLE. She’s definitely striking.
My one big problem was that, despite being directed by a woman, it was clearly written by a man (men, if you take in LeCarre and the adapter) when it came to Sophie. I don’t know if it’s cultural biases on my part and the writers really thought about what it might be like to be a beautiful Egyptian woman (but Samira, a Sophie probably would have had a better plan than find another protector and let him do something about the weapons list, at least when it came to an escape route). I get the feeling that the chaps were thinking more about the hero getting to play the white knight, which made Samira a damsel - property, essentially, abused by the bad guy, let down by the good guy, and even if Pine is representing the UK to some degree - nope, it’s still chauvinist.
And it seems that the same pattern will be followed by Debicki’s character...
They’re just lucky that Colman’s Angela is being dogged, fierce and honourable and not a sexual object. And guess what, she was originally written as a man!? (So far, this fails the Bechdel test, as women mumbling to each other as they’re herded out of the room where the men will talk business doesn’t count.)
Showing us Pine seeing/imagining the ghost of Sophie was just schlocky.
But things have been established, so let’s watch Hiddleston and the others play how deep Pine will go in five star hotel land.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/221582.html.