From the moment that Kate Winslet comes into the frame in the first episode of HBO’s new limited series The Regime (premiering March 3), it’s evident that the actress is three-for-three at the premium cable network. Her previous HBO series, Mildred Pierce and Mare of Easttown, established Winslet as more than capable of wading into long-form narratives, and in ways that she couldn’t under the constraints of dramatic filmmaking. She excels at dredging up her characters’ finer details gradually to create complete pictures of real people. In her latest role as Elena Verham, the supreme leader of a nameless European autocracy, Winslet gets closer to the truth than ever as a cheek-sucking chancellor with a nasty penchant for alienating everyone inside and outside of her palace’s walls.
If you’ve paid attention to the news in the last two decades, you may think you know Elena. And, to be fair, those with a head for international affairs will recognize different shades of political leaders in Winslet’s performance. There are notes of China’s Xi Jinping, echoes of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, and a thick ladle of our very own former (knock on wood) President Donald Trump all over The Regime. Though Winslet’s character may be a clever amalgamation of these and other similar leaders, Elena stands all on her own—as both a fictional character and within Winslet’s career. In her three decades as an actor, Winslet has never had such a caustically funny role to chew on, and The Regime’s bold, bizarre satire is the perfect avenue for her to prove that even a substantiated career can benefit from a daring left turn.
The specifics about the country where The Regime takes place are kept intentionally murky by showrunner and writer Will Tracy, who most recently co-wrote another send-up of power dynamics (though one a bit less keen), The Menu. Tracy’s vague scene-setting encourages viewers to envision a little bit of every authoritarian rule within his whacked-out vision. It’s a decision that makes it even easier for viewers to see how a country can fall into the wrong state in the right hands. The most powerful people don’t always appear so imposing but, rather, as bumbling idiots whose heads are about to fly off their necks at any moment.
