The miniseries became an anthology series. After winning 10 awards at the last Emmy ceremony, “The White Lotus” is back this Sunday (30) on HBO Max in another location, with other stories and another cast, except for the one who became the protagonist of the production, Jennifer Coolidge.
Unlike the first season, the beginning of the seven-episode series already shows where it came from: bodies are found floating in the sea right in front of the Sicilian luxury hotel “White Lotus”. And, at least, until the fifth episode to which the CNN had access, not even a small hint of what happened is revealed.
For the most anxious viewer, used to true crime series, for example, the series may not be the best choice.
But for that other viewer who assuages that same anxiety with nitpicking and complicated family relationships, “The White Lotus” is the perfect production.
The series manages to introduce totally obnoxious characters that we can’t stop following. There are more than five cores that intertwine. There are friends envious of a couple’s perfect relationship, a family with three generations of men with different views on masculinity, the classic deluded millionaire, her unfaithful husband and her assistant lost between the two.
The connection of these cores, however, comes from outside the hotel where they are staying.
A couple of Italian girls offer sex in exchange for money and some pampering at the hotel. They wander through the hotel’s bar and lobby and are seen by all the people, very good with money, thank you, who are there enjoying a few days of vacation.
Enjoying, comma. Some characters can’t get rid of dramas, on the contrary, working as a magnet for them in the middle of the paradise of Sicily. This is the case with Harper, played by Aubrey Plaza. A nouvelle riche married to a young businessman who is uncomfortable with the flawless relationship of the couple, together for 5 years, with whom she is traveling.
“Does the brain atrophy when you are rich for a long time?” it’s just an example of the tone of the sentences that the character drops from time to time to her husband, Ethan (Will Sharpe). Harper, therefore, begins a real investigation to discover something rotten in the couple, but ends up getting too involved in the research itself.
Across the aisle, we have Jennifer Coolidge reprising her role as Tanya McQuid: the stereotype of the superfluous, needy woman who asks her husband for a “Monica Vitti” day, only to be left alone at the hotel. Well, almost alone, since for her and her husband’s vacation, Tanya brings her assistant, Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), who, in the face of all the comforts of a luxury hotel, wants to escape her boss.
In one of these escapades, Portia ends up meeting Albie (Adam DiMarco), the youngest in a family that travels only among men. Grandfather and father are far from examples to be followed, irritating the son who doesn’t understand how both remain stuck in the past.
There’s even enough for the movie “The Godfather”, filmed, precisely, in Sicily.
Visiting the film’s locations, Dominic (Michael Imperioli) and Bert (F. Murray Abraham) look back on the film and rate it as the greatest of all time. With a laugh, Albie disagrees, saying that there are much better films and that both family members just want to live off a nostalgia that put men in a position of social leadership, where everything was resolved through violence.
This is the somewhat tiring part of the series. Bringing problematizations focused on the younger core, the series loses strength, being reduced to shallow complaints such as “I can’t stand tiktok and bumble anymore, I want a life without screens”.
However, on the other hand, there are real problematizations brought in subtle and interesting ways: an alienated rich couple, who say they don’t watch the news or vote, a friendship relationship that becomes a power game and machismo rooted, even in the community LGBTQIA+.
There’s even enough for the Apple TV+ series “Ted Lasso”, one of this year’s great Emmy winners alongside “The White Lotus”. The series is rated as “cute” by the futile couple and becomes a joke for a brief moment.
To the sound of an impeccable soundtrack that brings reinventions of classic Italian songs (or almost) like “That’s Amore”, by Dean Martin, the new season of “The White Lotus” focuses on the complexity of love and what it takes to make a relationship work. And, let’s face it, if it doesn’t work in Italy, it’s unlikely to work anywhere else.
Source: CNN Brasil
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