'The Gilded Age' shines as an American plot of 'Downton Abbey'-adjacent real estate
The parallels between "The Gilded Age" and Julian Fellowes' earlier creation "Downton Abbey" aren't hard to spot, which doesn't make this HBO drama any less delicious. Set in the moneyed corridors of New York during the 1880s, Fellowes and...
(CNN)The parallels betwixt "The Gilded Age" and Julian Fellowes' earlier instauration "Downton Abbey" aren't hard to spot, which doesn't marque this HBO play immoderate little delicious. Set successful the moneyed corridors of New York during the 1880s, Fellowes and his sprawling formed person delivered different crisp look astatine wealthiness and people successful earlier times, erstwhile adjacent those with the golden chafed against the intricate rules.
The backdrop present lies not successful British aristocracy but alternatively the hostility of old-money families toward what they dismissively notation to arsenic "the caller people," those who person precocious travel into fortunes but deficiency the arrived-on-the-Mayflower claims to elite status.
That intra-class warfare and the ostentatious displays of wealthiness associated with it are viewed successful portion done the wide eyes of a caller arrival, Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson, the youngest of Meryl Streep's talented acting daughters), who, aft the decease of her father, travels from agrarian Pennsylvania to reside with her 2 aunts, the imperious Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and mousier Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon).
Agnes joined well, allowing her sister, arsenic she notes, "the axenic and tranquil beingness of a spinster." Like the Dowager Countess successful "Downton," Fellowes graces her with each the champion lines, which Baranski delivers with dripping venom, her fangs hardly concealed.
To her changeless irritation, the "new" radical to whom she objects reside straight crossed the street, successful the signifier of railroad baron George Russell (Morgan Spector) and his woman Bertha (Carrie Coon), who employment a Downton-like array of servants. When not maintaining the mansion, the downstairs people gossip astir the Russells' prospects of being accepted into precocious society, which is Bertha's relentless goal.
"She's built a palace to entertain the benignant of radical who volition ne'er travel here," sneers Bertha's maid (Kelley Curran), portion plotting arsenic to however she tin flight specified service.
This American mentation besides brings contention into the mix, with Marian's travel introducing her to Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), an aspiring Black writer who takes a presumption successful Agnes's employ. Marian's tendency to go Peggy's person betrays some her naivete and the overt racism of the times, though with marginal depth, a possibly inevitable relation of everything other that's unfolding upstairs and downstairs.
Fellowes remains an implicit maestro astatine juggling a dizzying fig of subplots arsenic good arsenic uncovering intriguing wrinkles successful characters with comparatively tiny roles, specified arsenic Blake Ritson arsenic Agnes's scheming son. There's a peculiar embarrassment of riches connected the histrion side, with Audra McDonald, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Donna Murphy to assistance people up the already-classy joint.
The aboriginal episodes (five of the 9 were previewed) besides impressively chew done story, indicating that portion the dresses mightiness look stiff and confining, the pacing isn't.
The casting is arsenic impeccable arsenic the play costumes, with Jacobson arsenic the marginally modern newcomer caught successful the mediate of these aged grudges, and Coon and Spector excelling arsenic the eventual powerfulness couple, playing a agelong crippled successful leveraging their wealthiness to interruption down the barriers erected by the entrenched establishment.
One of the tensions involves the question of Marian marrying for thing different than fiscal advantage, a imaginable greeting with fearfulness by her pragmatic aunt. "Will you concede thing to my property and experience?" Agnes asks her.
Although real-life figures from the play walk done the story, "The Gilded Age" rapidly carves retired a dense world each its own. And portion respective characters person evident "Downton" counterparts (including beingness successful the closet for gays during this era), the Yankee spirit distinguishes the bid capable to basal isolated from it.
It's aboriginal to pronounce this afloat arsenic different "Downton"-like addiction, with one movie and another connected the way. Yet Fellowes has laid retired the instauration for a play soap with that lofty potential, successful what is already a precise enticing portion of "Abbey"-adjacent existent estate.
"The Gilded Age" premieres Jan. 24 astatine 9 p.m. ET connected HBO, which, similar CNN, is simply a portion of WarnerMedia.
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