March–April 2024. A very strange, frequently tasteless, mostly inexplicable black comedy political satire from the creator of SUCCESSION — though more strongly reminiscent, presumably on purpose, of the 2017 THE DEATH OF STALIN — THE REGIME is a six-part miniseries starring a self-consciously frumpy-looking, outrageously hammy Kate Winslet as Elena Vernham, the egomaniacal authoritarian chancellor of an unnamed Ruritanian state somewhere in Central Europe.
As her hapless husband (Guillaume Gallienne) and self-dealing underlings tiptoe around her growing list of neuroses and increasingly erratic mood swings, a soldier named Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts), notorious for his role in a brutal massacre of striking mine workers, is recruited to play a hard-to-define, ever-shifting supporting role in Elena's ongoing psychological breakdown and various political confrontations.
Winslet seems to have been having fun, although she overacts shamelessly, and what accent she thinks she's doing seems to vary from moment to moment; the median could best be described as "Margaret Thatcher, very tipsy, trying to pretend she's not sucking on an Everlasting Gobstopper." Schoenaerts, for reasons that are never clear, plays Zubak like a punch-drunk boxer trying to walk off a life-threatening concussion, leaving his character a perplexing cipher throughout.
Like THE DEATH OF STALIN (which I thought wildly overrated), THE REGIME is more often crass and uncomfortable than actually funny, and its smug misogyny would be offensive if taken seriously (which is admittedly very difficult). Also, given the current state of the UK, watching the largely British cast mock the political instability of a fictitious "Middle European" autocracy causes some seasickness. (Whistling past the graveyard, perhaps, but still.) CONTAINS LESBIANS? No! VERDICT: Much more "funny strange" than "funny ha-ha," and because it's basically a one-note joke, it becomes like one of those terrible SNL skits that just won't end.
4 notes
·
View notes
I've been following that AITA blog for a bit now and it has me thinking about my own life situations with conflict and drama. A passive "do I have anything I could submit to that blog?" But upon thinking about it, it's like... I really find no value in asking strangers whether I'm "the asshole" in situations. There are situations where I'm clearly not at fault, situations where I was a little shit but it was justified, and at least one situation where I have a definite "Oh yeah, I was definitely the asshole there". All in the past, so it's not like I'd even need advice or anything. I already know, so what's the point?
Maybe it stems from me being a generally self-aware and self-confident kind of person. I know what's going on with myself, know when I've wronged people, & I have a mentality of "well, I'll try to not do that in the future." Even if I feel a little guilty thinking back, what's the point of asking after something when I know I'm at fault? Or situations where things were complicated and both people had fault in things, but I know I wasn't being shitty on purpose & that's what matters to me. Ultimately, it results in a bunch of strangers drawing conclusions about things I really don't care about outside input on.
Still love reading the blog tho. There's something about reading up on random people's life drama that satisfies that gossipmonger soul in me So well.
2 notes
·
View notes
so how do I reconcile with just having big baby loser brain that decided I'd be mentally ill and perpetually stuck suffering instead of having just dealt with my shit in a more normal way? or is there some neuroscience that can explains that I don't have a cringefail brain but it's actually something else??
i mean. it's shame. shame I feel for struggling with things i consider i shouldn't struggle with, which i guess is kinda stupid bcs when i take a step back i realize it's understandable that im struggling with certain things ive lived through. being stuck in them doesn't entirely make sense, but I'm willing to accept that my past shaped me. not to mention that I'm also somehow kind of constantly going through really hard situations on top of also dealing with my past? but it also all (mental illness and emotional sensitivity, I mean) started with something, and my early childhood was my parents getting divorced.
but I consider that banal, plenty of parents get divorced and it doesn't mean their kid suffers from treatment-resistant depression and ptsd. I guess divorce is so normalized now that i don't consider it a valid thing to be traumatized over, at least not to the extent to which ive experienced symptoms. but I was separated from one parent, always missing one or the other, without any explanation that could make sense to a child's brain about why any of this happened and why i have to suffer because of it. can I get rid of the shame by validating the struggles I went through? would that make me feel better about having been disabled by my life experiences?
2 notes
·
View notes
the portrayal of social anxiety in dear evan hansen always bothered because like. okay. so the initial misunderstanding is actually 100% believable, just straight-up what 15- or 16-year-old me would have done in a situation where i keep getting shut down when i try to speak up. just go quiet and go along with whatever's going on. and from that point on, i would actively avoid everyone involved in the situation as much as i possibly can. just escape, get away, not deal with it again. and now i have a permanent debuff of anxiety and guilt forever. if i was forced to talk to the murphys again, i would quickly clarify what was actually going on, because at that point there's no easy escape, and trying to create a lie is infinitely more stressful than fessing up, apologizing, and freeing myself of the situation.
but evan isn't me, so let's say for him, crafting an elaborate lie is somehow less stressful than telling the truth. okay, i can buy that. what fucking baffles me, though, is how much he seemingly gets into it without feeling any anxiety at all about this horrible stressful situation he's got himself in? to the point that he goes off his meds because he says he doesn't need them anymore? you would think that hinging your entire social life on an elaborate lie that could be exposed at any moment would be the most stressful thing imaginable for someone with "getting a little bit embarrassed in front of other people makes me actually literally want to die" disorder. but no, he's just fine now lol
4 notes
·
View notes