Amor Towles’s bestselling historical fiction A Gentleman In Moscow, is so full of gentle humour and compassion, that it does not matter that the novel is set pre and post Bolshevik Revolution, and has as its protagonist a Russian aristocrat, whose life is upended by history.
Set in the grand Metropol Hotel in Moscow the book has such vivid characters, that a screen version was inevitable, and the project could not have got a better actor than Ewan McGregor to play Count Alexander Rostov, who is spared the bullet in the head, because of a revolutionary poem he supposedly wrote. As punishment, he is put under house arrest at the luxury hotel that the Party allows to function as before to show the world that all is well with Russia.
Under the hawk eye of his dour minder Osip Glebnikov (Johnny Harris), Rostov is relocated from his lavish suite to a cold attic room meant for the staff of the wealthy guests who used to stay at the hotel. Rostov accepts this with as much grace as he can muster under the circumstances, and, as he tells a friend later, if he didn’t he would fall into dark despair from which he would never be able to emerge.
In the book, Rostov meets and befriends members of the staff—some of whom knew him as guest—and tries to keep a routine. Outside the relative safety of the hotel, Russia goes through a political and social upheaval, which in the web series (adapted by Ben Vanstone) is just hinted at in conversations. The characters and their interactions with him are also curtailed, to focus on his life-altering friendship with a precocious nine-year-old Nina (Alexa Goodall), who is left mostly unsupervised as her father works on site. The resourceful kid has managed to acquire a master key for all the rooms in the hotel, which opens up hidden spaces for Rostov, the best being the roof from where he can glimpse all of Moscow.
The other important relationship is with the pragmatic actress Anna Urbanova (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, McGregor’s real-life spouse), who does what it takes to survive in the brutal regime and save her career.
His childhood friend Mishka (Fehinti Balogun– a Black man cast in the role just for the sake of inclusivity), who resents Rostov’s interference in his romance with his sister, that results in her death (there are hazy flashbacks), nevertheless remains loyal. He helps save Rostov’s life, even though, as a member of the Party, he is on the opposite side of the social and political fence. Interestingly, Osip, a self-confessed “hayseed” cultivates Rostov to learn how the upper classes lived, supposedly to understand the enemy, but also to make up for what he missed out as a member of the proletariat.
When his grandmother dies in exile and is not even accorded a traditional burial, or when his musician friend Prince Nikolai Petrov (Paul Ready) on the verge of escape, is shot dead in the street, Rostov almost falls apart, but life goes on. After a few years, he is given the job of the head waiter, because of his immense knowledge of food and wine.
Imprisonment in such comfort does not seem too bad, when people are dying or disease and starvation under the vicious communist regime. The book and the series are obviously looking at Rostov’s personal evolution; the changes in circumstance that he endures with remarkable fortitude.
Four hour-long episodes of the eight-part series are on Amazon Prime Video; one drops every week, and the remaining part of the story, if faithful to the book, has a lot of tumult lined up for Rostov. A Gentleman In Moscow is worth a watch for the gorgeous set, and for Ewan McGregor playing the part with such empathy that one can’t imagine anyone else in the role, not even Kenneth Branagh who was the first choice.
A Gentleman In Moscow
Directed by Sam Miller, Sarah O’Gorman
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Fehinti Balogun, Alexa Goodall, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and others
