Susan Granger’s review of “A Gentleman in Moscow” (Showtime/Paramount +)
“It is the business of times to change and gentlemen to change with them,” explains Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov (Ewan McGregor) in this eight-episode mini-series adaptation of Amor Towles’ acclaimed 2016 novel about love and loss.
Count Rostov’s saga begins in 1921, after he’s caught in the Russian Revolution which designated former nobility as enemies of the state. A Bolshevik tribunal sentences him to spend the rest of his life within the confines of Moscow’s Hotel Metropol – not in the elegant suite he’d previously occupied but in a drafty attic, formerly used as servants’ quarters. Should he ever leave, he will be shot on sight.
Haunted by memories of his bucolic past and taunted by Osip (Johnny Harris) from the Russian Secret Police, Count Rostov is soon befriended by precocious nine year-old Nina Kulikova (Alexa Goodall), who has explored every nook and cranny of the hotel, showing him secret passageways and locked rooms filled with confiscated treasures.
In turn, given his extravagant nature and impeccable manners, childless Count Rostov enthralls inquisitive Nina with stories about his glamorous aristocratic past, instructing her on precise and proper etiquette.
Watching her grow into womanhood, their bond grows deeper, aided and abetted by their makeshift family: other long-term hotel residents as well as the waiters, bartenders, cooks, seamstress, barber, and musicians.
Nina’s fate becomes even more intertwined with his after she marries. Determined to follow her Soviet soldier husband to Siberia, yet unable to travel with a child, she leaves her five year-old daughter Sofia (Billie Gadsdon) in his care.
As years go by, Count Rostov becomes increasingly romantically involved with ambitious actress Anna Urbanova (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and more embroiled in the sociopolitical ramifications (terror, famine, mass murder) of the Communist State.
Adapted by Ben Vanstone and directed by Sam Miller, the plot is filled with dramatic twists and turns, set in and around the iconic hotel, as Ewan McGregor delivers one of his most compelling performances, bringing depth and humanity to irrepressible Count Rostov.
FYI: In real life Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are married; they met playing lovers in “Fargo.”
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “A Gentleman in Moscow” is an intoxicating 7, streaming on Showtime/Paramount +.
