A Gentleman in Moscow (TV Mini Series) A Master of Circumstance (2024) User Reviews

A Master of Circumstance

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 1 April 2024]

A Gentleman in Moscow is based on the novel by Amor Towles.

Set in the early 1920s after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The aristocratic Count Alexander Rostov (Ewan McGregor) is spared the death penalty by the Bolsheviks.

All because of a poem he once wrote that was sympathetic to the workers.

Now a court has sentenced Rostov to the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. It is in effect house arrest. He cannot leave and he is thrown out of his plush suite. Rostov is thrown into a small decrepit room but he gets full board.

Rostov needs to adjust to his new life inside the hotel in a new Russia where the dwindling aristocracy is the enemy. If he steps outside of the hotel, he will be shot.

The first episode has Rostov plotting with another minor aristocrat, now working as a musician at the hotel to escape.

Although Rostov is later told by the hotel manager. That the plush Metropol is allowed to operate because the Bolsheviks can keep an eye on its bourgeoise guests.

The hotel set built on a sound stage in a Manchester studio was suitably lavish. I found a lot of the photography was murky and dark. Location shooting was a mixture of northern towns and green screen. It does look cheap as the darkness is meant to hide the CGI.

As for the black and asian characters in the series. That was a stylistic choice by the producers and unlike others, I do not have an issue with it.

I did find the first episode was weak. After the initial set up, it was basically Rostov forming some kind of loose plan to escape. It just was not fully thought through.

Brilliantly original, emotionally awaking intellectual awe-fest!!!

[michaelbevan-95877 · 10/10 · 3 May 2024]

The story of Count Alexandra Rostov is one of absolute brilliance a forced prisoner in the Bolsheviks era in Russia due to him being a man born into stature which communism despised. The man behind which the story is based around knows his status but helps everyone around him when they are in need and cannot tolerate incompetence with people's uneducated ideas or thoughts towards situations... A selfless man who knows he only wants the best for people but also a man who has made mistakes in the past. His heart is pure to his own mind but has made questionable feelings and actions towards people he loves and cares for a flawed man for not being able to see the other side of the story....

6 episodes into a series about a man stuck in a hotel with a minimal cast and after nearly 6 hours watching has me begging another episode when it's over. The stories of the characters and the hard times they live in and everything above and in between are brilliantly thought out and pulls you into their suffering, sacrifice, love, humour, friendship and togetherness makes you feel like your a fly on the wall....

This is shot in English (no American) with English actors about the russian revolution but seems to fit the title of the show a gentleman in Russia. For me this is an intellectual series and an emotionally connecting one and for those people that can understand and realise the whole premise of the series will be giving this 10 stars....

The people giving this series ***one*** ***star*** are either uneducated in emotion and knowledge or are the types of people that see you trying to cross a road and speed up not to let you so as they don't have to slow down...

Don't let the 6.6 spoil this if you have a kind heart and are educated you'll be missing out!!!!

If you've read the glorious book this is a hard pass

[kristinbauer1 · 1/10 · 12 April 2024]

Not really sure why a studio is inspired to plunk down Millions to adapt a book to the screen and then Change it utterly. In other words, ruins it.

1. A black Mishka (with rastas no less) is just silly.

2. The counts character is different in the book and better than here. Ewan does a good job but the dialogue is hallmark-ish. "They can take your home but not who you are" (ugh). And then At the bar..."if I let myself think about it I'd fall in to despair" or something to that TV effect. Why? The wonderful glorious thing about the book is the Count has such staggering depth of character!! In fact, so much so that he's in this situation

3. Why not keep the book in order? They pull pieces (badly) from much later in the book and randomly Alter it - this show is a mess. The book is SO much better and very Different!

4. Why alter simple things like his first morning where they actually bring him breakfast at his room. Such a nice moment to meet the hotel staff. It showed the deep respect they had for the count.

5. They're doing odd things like already referencing the pistols behind the painting and then He goes hunting for them. In the book he is amused by happening at finding them

6.ossip was not there at the moment he went back in to his suite or later when they didn't ever shoot Dimitri . He meets ossip much later and does Not know him yet and the Form a fascinating friendship!

7. They never rousted the Counts room! What was that about?!

8. He never for one moment thought of escape or rebellion! Also neither did the violin player. That's the point of the book! They were utterly good Russians, with self integrity. What was that weird fantasy of escape? In the book, we really see what character sasha has! In this show sasha pauses because he can't take his belongings??? (Eye roll) He stayed (and said He wrote the poem) because of his strength of character! And this Whole weird story line made up and crammed In with Dimitri???

9. "How are we going to survive these endless days stuck in this hotel"? So on the nose. Painful writing. Such a better reveal in the book of how Nina shows him the hotel. It's a fun room not a spy thriller

It really shows how a world class book writer like Amor and a Screen writer are just not in the same league.

10. Marina is also not a Russia in 1918 (eye roll). Really? A period price can't even be a period piece now?? (Huge eye roll). Where's the diversity for Russian actors? They're English and black. Why not hire Russians??

11. The trip through the basement in the book is so charming and in This show it becomes some sort of political thriller. He saw dimitris name on a list just by chance??? Lame. And then The count won't leave because of his dead sister?? "Perhaps I don't deserve to (live my life)". Dear god who wrote this?? Why not just do what amor did in the book?!?!?! It's GENIUS

12. The camera jerks around randomly and bizarrely.

13. The flashbacks are random and not Illumintaing the way they use them - in the book Amor revealed them so artfully!!

14. They seize Dimitri at the restaurant and smash His violin??? SO STUPID!!! And they Shoot him in front of the hotel?!?! Soooooooooo much better in the book! They find a photo of the emporer in Dimitri's grade school book. So much more illustrative of how crazy this time was. Amor was artful.

I've listened to the book a few times and it Is LEAGUES BETTER THAN THIS!!!

I will not be watching any further. This show is just not good.

READ THE BOOK!

An adaptation that IS GREAT!!! Is SHOGUN! Watch that instead! On Hulu. Shogun was a brilliant book (much longer than GIM too) and in Ten episodes they have done a brilliant job in that miniseries. And you Know what? Asians even got to play Asians and English Got to play English!

Box ticking, quota filling rubbish

[terraplane · 1/10 · 3 April 2024]

If you make a movie set in Russia in the early 20th century, why would you include black and asian characters? I ask this because these people were practically unknown in Russia and Moscow at that time, and to a large degree, still are. The character of Mishka, supposedly a friend of the count, could not possibly have been black, especially not a black man with dreadlocks. It is laughable to suggest that a black man with dreadlocks would move in high society in Russia at that time. As for Marina, the same applies. Black seamstresses did not exist. All of this to keep the quotas in line with what a minority of ghastly liberal Guardian readers think is correct. This sort of excruciating political correctness is just insulting. Look what happened to Anne Boleyn with Jodie Turner-Smith as the ill-fated queen of England. It failed on every level. Cultural appropriation works both ways, so why is this rubbish not being called out?

The actual movie looks like a sort of BBC Dickens adaptation done on the cheap. The script is stilted and goes nowhere fast. The shaky camera work is irritating and stupid. A complete waste of time and money that could have been so much better because the book is actually a good bit of stoty-telling.