The regime, with Kate Winslet and the screenwriter of Succession, is a satire to be eaten cold

It starts off strange The regime. The little music of Alexandre Desplat (Oscar winner for the soundtracks of The shape of water AND The Grand Hotel in Budapest It seems more appropriate for one of the comedies of manners directed by Alejandro Doria. Will this miniseries go there? Kate Winsletpremiered Sunday night MAX?

The Regime is set in a central European country, in an indefinite period of time, at least in the first of the six episodes that the miniseries will contain (it is assumed that it will not have a second season). It is ruled by Chancellor Elena Vernham (Kate Winslet), a somewhat hypochondriac and extremely selfish dictator. In her speech for the anniversary of her seventh year in power she claims to have freely won the elections against the left-wing chancellor Ed di lei (who did not appear in Sunday’s episode, but who will appear, played by Hugh Grant).

We said that the beginning was strange, and not just because of the music. While it’s always commendable that they don’t give you everything, it’s better to enter the plot as if it were a prepo, which generates intrigue and questions or, at least, curiosity.

Corporal Herbert Zubak (Belgian Matthias Schoenaerts, from The Danish girl) a little battered, drugged. He is transferred under guard because he was specially chosen by the chancellor for a specific task.

If we said that Elena, who was a doctor by profession before assuming power, was a hypochondriac, perhaps her respiratory problems make her intervention necessary. Her father—whose body she keeps in a glass coffin, as if he were Snow White—died of a lung problem. And the newcomer, known as The Butcher after a crackdown on some workers in a cobalt mine, the main wealth of the place, which left behind a dozen bodies, has a function. He measures the humidity and mold of the environment in which the registrar circulates and informs you of the percentage discreetly.

Discretion will not be a constant The regimemuch less when palace intrigues increase, and the corporal’s words open his eyes – or cloud them, we will see – on the convenience or otherwise of continuing to trade cobalt with the Americans.

But Elena, what an actress Titanic He knows how to give her that line of firmness and security, but he also knows how to play on the side of vulnerability, she is not alone. Her husband is a French expatriate (Guillaume Gallienne), and her right-hand man, at least until the corporal arrives, is Agnes (Andrea Riseborough), the palace manager.

After Easttown Marethe exceptional miniseries also broadcast by HBO in 2021 and starring Winslet, expectations with The Regime were on the same side, but in this first episode satire prevails more than anything else, and the lightness of the scenes makes it difficult to pay attention to them.

Half of the miniseries was directed by the expert Stephen Frears, who knows palace intrigue: he directed Dangerous relationshipsAND Queenbased on a screenplay by Will Tracy, based on the film The menustarring Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes and the series Successionwhich also dealt with hypocrisy in high places.

Kate Winslet, omnipresent

It remains to be seen how much Zubak’s pre-eminence will continue to grow once he has won the chancellor’s trust and becomes, or not, a sort of Rasputin.

Something smells rotten, not in Denmark, but in the unnamed country of the miniseries, and we will find out as we continue watching the episodes, because the credits are still open, obviously. Until it gets cut.

“The Regime”

Satire. UK/US, 2024. Original title: “The regime.” Episodes under an hour, SAM 16. From: Stefano Frears. With: Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Andrea Riseborough, Guillaume Gallienne. Available in: MAX, which premieres each episode on Sundays at 11 p.m.