McGregor plays a Russian count under house arrest after the revolution in a new Paramount+ series based on Amor Towles’ 2016 novel. Critic John Powers calls it a light series about dark things.
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
It’s FRESH AIR. In the new TV series “A Gentleman In Moscow,” Ewan McGregor plays a Russian count under house arrest after the Russian Revolution. Based on the 2016 novel by Amor Towles, the show begins streaming today on Paramount+, then televises Sundays on Showtime. Our general spokesperson, John Powers, says it’s a light-hearted series about dark things.
JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: Nearly 250 years after ousting the British monarchy, Americans can’t get enough of aristocracy. We devour “The Crown” and “Downton Abbey,” obsess over Kate Middleton’s health and Prince Harry’s marriage, and find vampires very sexy because they are nobly born. This fascination helped make the best-selling “A Gentleman In Moscow,” Amor Towles’ elegant novel about an extremely attractive Russian aristocrat after the Russian Revolution of 1917. A fictionalized fable about a grimly realistic era, it was adapted into television series starring the very attractive Scottish actor Ewan McGregor.
The series was created by Ben Vanstone, who was behind the “All Creatures Great And Small” reboot. He uses this brutal period as the backdrop for an easy-to-swallow story about an honest but frivolous man who grows deeper while cut off from his life of privilege. MacGregor plays Count Alexander Rostov, an educated and well-mannered bachelor with extensive knowledge of wine, impeccably cut dandy suits and a mustache of which he is quite vain.
His story begins in 1922, when the Bolsheviks condemned him – implausibly, it must be said – to life-long house arrest in the luxurious Metropol Hotel in Moscow. Although he lives under the sinister gaze of a secret policeman named Osip, played by Johnny Harris, it’s not exactly the gulag. Despite his small accommodation, he eats every evening in the hotel’s elegant restaurant, whose cellar houses his beloved Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Over the next three decades, the Count befriends a young girl, Nina, who becomes a devout communist and reunites with his radical college friend Mishka played with Dostoyevskian fervor by Fehinti Balogun. He also becomes involved with a savvy actress, Anna Urbanova. It’s an astute Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who coaxes him out of bed with the same imperious haste with which she invited him in.
As the passing years unleash famine, propaganda lies and Stalinist terror, mostly unseen inside the hotel, he finds himself doing things he could never have imagined. He becomes a waiter at the hotel restaurant and begins to take care of a little girl, Sofia, whose parents have been sent to a camp. Here, chatting with Stalin-admirer Nina, he offers a parable about moths in Manchester, England.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW”)
EWAN MCGREGOR: (As Alexander Rostov) For thousands of years, the peppered butterfly had white wings with black spots and was perfectly camouflaged against the bark of silver birch trees. Naturally, there were aberrations – butterflies with blood-black wings. They were quickly plucked from the trees by birds before they had a chance to mate. In the late 19th century, when Manchester became populated with factories, soot covered all the buildings and trees, and the white-winged butterfly found itself exposed and picked, while the black-winged butterflies thrived. In less than a century, the black-winged butterfly, which represented 10% of the butterfly population, now represented more than 90%, and the white-winged butterfly found itself in the minority.
BEAU GADSDON: (as Sofia) So what?
MCGREGOR: (As Alexander Rostov) It took generations for a way of life to disappear. In current circumstances, we must recognize that the process can happen in the blink of an eye.
BEAU: (As Sofia) As Darwin says, adapt or die.
POWERS: Over the course of eight episodes of the series – in truth, six would have been tighter and stronger – the countdown adapts. He quickly becomes friends with the hotel’s concierge, bartender, and kitchen staff, people he once would have treated politely like minors, and he learns what it means to be responsible for a child. While opening himself to new things, he also tries to civilize his supervisor, Osip, by offering him “Les Miserables” and showing him Hollywood films.
While anyone who believes in revolution is fatally mistaken, Le Comte remains aristocratic in the noblest sense of the term. The series doesn’t really explain how the Count’s brilliant urbanity was made possible, because the men of his class lived off the work of poor serfs. Such protective fondness for the Count might seem obtuse, were it not for McGregor’s charming performance. It gives this man of law wit, warmth and joy of life, qualities which drive the Bolsheviks crazy but which endear us to him. To my surprise, growing up in a small Midwestern town, I came to identify with a Russian aristocrat who discovers how to live more fully by watching his comfortable world fall apart.
BIANCULLI: John Powers reviewed the new TV series “A Gentlemen In Moscow.” It begins streaming today on Paramount+ and will premiere on Showtime this Sunday. Ahead, another of today’s streaming TV firsts. I’m reviewing the new two-part Apple TV+ documentary about Steve Martin. It’s FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF ERROLL GARNER’S “I Can’t Give You Nothing But Love”)
Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit the terms of use and permissions pages on our website at www.npr.org for more information.
NPR transcripts are created on urgent deadlines by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio recording.
Entertainment
