CHRISTOPHER STEVENS evaluations The White Lotus on Sky Atlantic: We like nothing greater than seeing wealthy folks having a rotten time…
The White Lotus (Sky Atlantic)
RATING: FOUR STARS
Envy has become our favourite form of entertainment, and there’s nothing we enjoy more than watching rich people having a rotten time. That’s just what The White Lotus delivers.
Much of the second episode of this eight-parter taunted us with visions of luxury spa treats, in a location where a single night costs more than most families spend on a fortnight’s break.
I counted four kinds of massage, plus a flotation tank, a gym with a view of the Indian Ocean, and an outdoor ‘dining experience’ with a ladyboy cabaret act. You don’t get that in Weston-super-Mare.
And was anybody having fun? Of course not. Drifter Rick (Walton Goggins) is so depressed, it’s only his thirst for vengeance against the hotel owners that is keeping him alive. Jason Isaacs, as financier Timothy, has just discovered he faces prosecution for money laundering.
His wife, Victoria (Parker Posey), was either comatose on tranquilisers or giggling woozily at some joke that no one else could hear. Other guests were drinking wine by the bucket. Perhaps being rich is so awful, booze and pills are the only way to cope.
Victoria believes it, just as she believes the rest of the world is intent on scamming her and her three grown-up children. ‘You’re all gorgeous and you come from money,’ she warns them, ‘so you have to be hyper vigilant, you have to be on your guard.’
In the opening episode, a party of female friends were peripheral characters, but this time they came to the centre — dealing out backhanded compliments to each other with every step.
Jaclyn, Kate and Laurie (Michelle Monaghan, Leslie Bibb and Carrie Coon) are like a middle-aged Charlie’s Angels gone bad. Whenever one of them is out of earshot, the other two are ripping her faults apart. And when they’re together, they’re worse . . . but doing it with glittering smiles.
The luxury spa retreat featured in The White Lotus, Season 3 Episode 2, costs more to visit for a single night than most families spend on a fortnight’s break
There were four kinds of massage in the episode, plus a flotation tank, a gym with a view of the Indian Ocean, and an outdoor ‘dining experience’ with a ladyboy cabaret act
Only vengeance against the hotel owners is keeping Drifter Rick, played by Walton Goggins (pictured), alive
Apart from the bitterness, the ostentation and the decadence, there isn’t much going on in the way of a plot. There’s plenty of flirting, though, with a queasy undercurrent of incest between Timothy and Victoria’s children.
Patrick Schwarzenegger plays sex-mad oldest son Saxon, and his bare backside featured again — in fact, it filled the opening shot, following its starring role last week. I assume it’s his, anyway. Perhaps it’s a stunt bottom.
Take away the resentment and the begrudging, and it’s not an original format. The set-up — wealthy, demanding guests, overworked staff and a looming disaster — was pioneered by the king of paperbacks, Arthur Hailey.
Instead of satire and avarice, though, Arthur dealt in facts . . . freightloads of facts. I read his 1968 megaseller Airport last month, which meant wading through sheaves of his meticulous research into airline stats and data.
Even at the climax, as a crippled airliner plunged towards a blocked runway in a blizzard, Arthur took a three-page digression into the economics of holiday insurance.
It’s incredible to realise that, half a century ago, facts were considered sexy. They’re certainly not fashionable now.
