“Never breathe in her direction. Stay calm. Don’t vomit.”
These instructions are our first introduction to Chancellor Elena Vernham (Kate Winslet), the egomaniacal and bumbling authoritarian leader of a fictional European country at the center of the new HBO satire “The Regime.”
Vernham goes to great lengths toward maintaining the performance of governing with no real investment in actual governance. As this cartoonishly mercurial figure, whose affected verbal tics involve speaking out of only one side of her mouth, Winslet adds another role to her career of chameleonic and daring choices and delivers with her typical aplomb.
Unfortunately, her mesmerizing performance isn’t enough to lift the series’ six episodes out of their frequent doldrums and glossy excess. Created by “Succession” writer Will Tracy, this new limited series, on paper, seemed like a promising successor to “Succession,” as well as “Veep.” Its trailer certainly hinted at something resembling a marriage of those celebrated and prescient shows. But “The Regime” lacks both the biting wit and the surgical precision of its predecessors.
To be fair, “Succession” and “Veep” are both high bars to clear. Nearly a year after its final season, the hole left by the former’s pitch-perfect conclusion still feels unfilled. And throughout the last half decade or so, it has been common on the internet to grimly joke that “Veep” is actually a documentary, in response to various political events both in the U.S. and abroad.
There’s also the high bar set by Winslet’s last HBO limited series, “Mare of Easttown,” which became a word-of-mouth hit in 2021, so much so that its final episode crashed the network’s streaming service (then known as HBO Max). With each episode, Winslet peeled back further layers of her character, elevating what could have been a standard procedural about a police detective investigating grisly crimes while dealing with demons of her own.
Premiering Sunday, “The Regime” is yet another vehicle for her talent, set against what seemed like another intriguing and meaty premise. However, and strangely, for a series with just six episodes, that premise quickly runs out of steam.
The aforementioned instructions about Vernham, given by Agnes (Andrea Riseborough), the head of operations at the chancellor’s palace, are directed at Cpl. Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts), a mysterious soldier summoned to the palace for a new assignment. The corporal’s initial duties involve following Vernham around to measure the mold in the air and report back on the percentage of relative humidity. As Agnes explains, Vernham’s lungs are weak, supposedly due to a hereditary issue. Everyone’s mission is to protect the dear leader. For instance, Vernham has enough air purifiers and dehumidifiers to power a small country.
Prone to temperamental whims, Vernham soon becomes enamored with the corporal, bringing him into her inner circle as her chief political confidant. This shocks her actual advisers, who conspire to turn the ship around but predictably are also inept and sycophantic.
The ensuing political chaos is not enough to sustain six episodes, which increasingly become muddled and overstuffed, relying on surface-level spectacle rather than using its farce to uncover some blistering truths about geopolitics. Unlike, say, the perfect tragicomic alchemy that defined “Succession,” “The Regime” never seems to know where to land or what tone to strike. The jokes and gags are just mildly funny, while the dramatic moments and turning points feel forced and confounding rather than electrifying.
In the series’ second episode, a top U.S. senator (played by Martha Plimpton) visits Vernham for a diplomatic meeting. There’s an attempt to parody the empty buzzwords and circumlocution of such meetings, with the senator saying, “I think we hear each other.” Prior to that, Vernham bluntly states that her marriage to husband Nicky (Guillaume Gallienne) is initially one of convenience. Collectively, these are among a bunch of tossed-off observations about power with no clear thesis statement. Like the gaudy decor of Vernham’s palace (shot in part at a real palace in Austria), it’s hard to know where to direct one’s attention and how to determine which of the show’s dizzying array of overstuffed spectacles actually means something.
There are some clever visual nods in the show’s production design, like the way the palace’s cabinet room bears a very close resemblance to the war room in “Dr. Strangelove.” But eventually, the series’ schtick gets old — in large part because it’s unclear what even the schtick is.
Satire works best when it’s showing and not telling, as well as when it’s demonstrating a clear sense of who or what is the subject of the satire. Unfortunately, “The Regime” can’t seem to define what exactly is the butt of the joke. Some of the topics gestured at in the series include, but are not limited to: authoritarianism, nationalism, ethnocentrism, geopolitical crises and the empty feminism of what has become known as girlbossing. There are far too many targets and not enough focus, leaving little to hang the whole series around.
Over the course of the series, Vernham’s illogical decisions lead the country into economic decline and political unrest, leaving her under siege. Not coincidentally, this is also where the series descends into confusion.
As the walls close in on Vernham, both figuratively and literally, she has several “let them eat cake” moments. For example, she posts a photo on social media of her eating caviar at breakfast, thinking it’s a show of resolve, and captions it: “Petty sanctions won’t starve us.” In the same scene, she protests that her son “has been such a tyrant lately.” The lack of self-awareness is supposed to be comical. However, much like the series’ later episodes, it lands not with a bang but with a whimper.
If there’s anything at all to glean from the show, maybe it’s that, just like when a world leader is only concerned about the performance of governing instead of actually governing, the trappings of a prestige satire can’t provide cover for when the real thing just isn’t there.
“The Regime” airs Sundays on HBO.