The actor’s performance in her new political comedy-drama is superb. But it’s a deeply confused show that leaves viewers baffled as to what it’s actually trying to say
The Regime may provide an answer to the perennial question of how actors get involved with bad films, bad TV series and assorted other projects that simply don’t work. Andrea Riseborough, for example, as Agnes, the housekeeper of the palace – in which her autocrat leader/employer Elena lives – must have thought that Agnes’s storyline was a good one. And potentially it is. As the mother of a boy who has epilepsy, whom Elena likes to co-parent, lavishing treats upon him while insisting his medication be replaced with natural remedies, this could have been a spirited commentary on the many ways tyrants – domestic or professional – can exert control, coerce and harm their people without ever physically laying a hand on them.
Taking on seemingly vital roles in a satire about power, corruption and the moral weakness of modern politicians must have been what attracted the Olivier-winning actors Henry Goodman and David Bamber to appear as members of Elena’s nominal cabinet who are forever plotting against her (while covering their own backsides). Matthias Schoenaerts, as the violent corporal Herbert Zubak, must have warmed instantly to the role of a common soldier elevated by Elena into an oracle. He was surely taken by the idea of a direct connection to the minds of the ordinary people (“My loves,” as Elena calls them in her plentiful addresses to the unnamed central European nation) and to their desires she longs to fulfil as long as it doesn’t actually cost her anything (particularly any of the national assets she has squirrelled away over the years).
