The Great
2020
Original language: English
- drama
- comedy
The story
A genre-bending, anti-historical ride through 18th century Russia following the rise of Catherine the Nothing to Catherine the Great and her explosive relationship with husband Peter, the emperor of Russia.
What it’s like
Saturated, candy-bright palaces with gilded rooms, deliberately anachronistic pop-rock needle drops, and camera moves that swoop and whip around ballroom sets with a restless, almost punk energy. Its look is baroque excess in jewel tones and sickly pastel, lit warmly and often flatly, so every frame feels like a painted confection with a dirty secret. The vibe is sly, bawdy and irreverent: chaotic palace intrigue played for cackling slapstick, with sharp modern wit in the dialogue and bursts of broad physical farce. Pacing is brisk and episodic, with escalating set pieces and a constant undertow of cruelty. Violence is frequent and often comic-grotesque, sexual content is explicit and frank, and there is real menace in the court politics; it is not gentle, though it lands more as black satire than as realistic horror. The emotional core is a young outsider's fierce, scheming ambition tangled up with a volatile, wounded marriage. It suits a binge over several evenings with friends, for viewers who enjoy mouthy period comedy with an edge and don't mind their history mocked.
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