If Vladimir Putin has made you feel a bit nervous about Russia, wait till you see “A Gentleman in Moscow,” the six-episode British series adapted from the Amor Towles novel. You may never look at vodka the same way again.
Ewan McGregor plays Count Alexander Rostov, a member of the Russian nobility who is sentenced to death once the Bolsheviks assume power in 1917. The good news: at the last moment, his death sentence is commuted because of a poem he once wrote expressing revolutionary sentiment. The bad news: the Count is sentenced to life imprisonment in Moscow’s Metropole Hotel where he once lived in splendor. He must move to a cramped room in the attic and renounce his possessions and money. If he steps outside even for a minute he will be shot.
This gives Rostov the opportunity to meet all sorts of guests, including friends from his previous privileged existence. He renews an acquaintance with Petrov (Paul Ready), a violinist with an escape plan. Another visitor, Mishka (Fehinti Balaban), is a childhood friend-turned-revolutionary who it turns out is the real author of the poem that saved Rostov’s life. Nina (Alex Goodall), an inquisitive nine-year-old living in the hotel, knows where to find all the Metropole’s secret passages, hidden staircases and locked rooms full of confiscated treasure. She befriends Rostov and wants to hear about the regal glamor of the world the count used to know.
Finally, Ana (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a beautiful and animated young actress, breezes into the hotel from time to time and waits, often in vain, for her next big film opportunity.
Gradually, Rostov settles into life as a prisoner. He becomes a waiter and befriends other members of the hotel staff, including the barber, the chefs, the seamstress, the concierge, and the musicians who come to play. He is however carefully watched over by Osip (Johnny Harris), an unsmiling secret policeman who underneath his grim exterior has a heart of gold. Osip turns to Rostov for advice on manners, wine and literature, as the latter is a gourmand, a thinker and a drinker. The two forge a friendship that will prove invaluable later on.
As the years pass, more and more formerly hard-line Stalinists become disillusioned with the government. They often face imprisonment or worse, including Nina (Leah Balmforth), now grownup and married, who is suspected of treason. Fearing arrest, she leaves her daughter Sofia (Beau Gadsden) with Rostov. Rostov becomes a substitute parent and life seems a bit more palatable.
While the situation of serving a jail sentence in a luxury hotel may seems a bit far-fetched or whimsical, the life Rostov leads in Iron Curtain Russia is no joke. Fearing spies at every turn and seeing friends disappear forever into the night—it all seems pretty authentic and godawful.
Fortunately there is much to admire about “Moscow”—the gorgeously appointed hotel itself, the era-appropriate jazz playing in the hotel bar, and the staff dinners when the cooks and waiters let their hair down and let the balalaika rip. While Macgregor and Winstead have great onscreen chemistry (they are married IRL), the young actors—Goodall in particular—are standouts.
John Heffernan is appropriately horrible as the boot-licking bespectacled hotel manager. You wonder how many more changes in regime he will survive. Probably all of them—in “Gentleman in Moscow,” it seems the good die young and the bad guys win. Never mind—see it anyway. It’s an uplifting portrayal of humans trying to survive a despotic regime and sometimes, against all odds, succeeding. On Paramount+.
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I loved the book so much I was hesitant that the series would never live up to Amor Towles writing. And I wasn’t sure about Ewan McGregor cast as the Count. But the series is pretty darn great and I’m sad to say we finished it last night. Although I preferred the book’s slightly different ending.