The award-winning saga of the white lotus is in its third season and still has something to say. Born in 2020 from the pen of Mike White called to the rescue by HBO short of productions due to forced confinement by Covid, the first six episodes of "The White Lotus" were written and shot in a few months in Hawaii. Aired in 2021, the series was an immediate success: a sumptuous setting (the White Lotus is a luxury resort), a group of wealthy people on vacation and the structure of the work that pays tribute to Christie's ten little Indians - an isolated and exclusive place, a group of protagonists gathered there for a period of time, one or more murders which are consumed in general confusion.
The crime story, however, is only the mask of a ferocious social satire, where the characters give the worst of themselves and paradise is irremediably an illusion. If the theme of the first season was clearly money and that of the second sex, at the center of the third White has put spirituality and death.
Set in Thailand, the third chapter frames, with the usual caustic and painful approach, (oriental) religion as a consumer good of the 'happy few', dissatisfied rich people, always looking for something to fill the void that they feel (?) inside.
As in the first two seasons, the heart of White Lotus – in Italy exclusively on Sky and Now – lies in the characters and the actors chosen to play them: not unknowns but not stars either, excellent material for Mike White to shape. From true demiurge – is the creator, author, showrunner, director – introduces, develops and dismisses each protagonist in his own way: no one is what they appear to be and no one leaves the White Lotus as they arrived there. Plot and settings are functional to the evolution or involution of the characters: first exotic Hawaii, then voluptuous Sicily, finally the Thailand of Buddhist rites, with the constant presence of the luxurious resort from private beaches and personal butlers are the backdrop to private vices with no more virtues.
The third chapter, like the previous ones, begins at the end and opens with a murder. In Thailand the dead man is floating on the water upside down – who he is will only be known at the end – and immediately the masterpiece opening of “Sunset Boulevard” by the glorious Wilder/Brackett firm comes to mind. Citation or not, here too the story is told in flashback. We go back a week: cut to the boat carrying, like a modern Charon, the guests to their destination.
In the third act of the saga there is the Ratliff family, reminiscent of the Mossbachers of the first: a career father, a mother under the influence of benzodiazepines (a sensational Parker Posey, in fact heir of the award-winning Jennifer Coolidge of seasons 1 and 2) and the three children, Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger, sic, son of Arnold and a real revelation), Piper, who studies the Buddhism and wants to stay in Thailand for a year as a guest of a monastery, and Lochlan, the youngest, in search of an author. Then there is a trio of forty-year-olds (Leslie Bibb, Michelle Monaghan and Carrie Coon) who, friends since childhood, have booked the holiday with the intention of meeting up and spending time together.
Finally the engaged couple, she very young (Aimee Lou Wood, seen in Sex Education), he (Walton Goggins, who acted for Tarantino and Spielberg) no longer, she sunny, he tormented, with a secret that he does not reveal. All around, servants, guards, masseurs, waiters, and the owners of the resort who will end up having a key role in the story. Patrick Schwarzenegger said that after the first episodes aired, the public hated Saxon and then came to prefer him to all the others.
If there is a key to the success of White Lotus it is the ability to show the protagonists in their multitudes, and turpitudes, often ending up overturning the initial appearances. Is Saxon really just a privileged person who drinks protein shakes all day without ever picking up a book? How solid is Piper's vocation? And are the three friends able to do without their miserable and mutual low blows to find the original harmony?
Thanks to the enveloping setting, the cast at the service of the script and the excellent musical commentary by Cristobal Tapia de Veer, winner of three Emmys, the White Lotus is a journey through its own contradictions, pettiness, temptations and weaknesses. And if the figure is coarser and the screenplay always emphasizes bright tones and extreme themes, the irony of the author - and of fate - ends up convincing the spectators to get on the boat and spend a (nightmarish) week at the White Lotus.
Francesca Boschiero
On Sky/Now
Original title: The White Lotus 3, Production: USA 2024, Director: Mike White, Screenplay: Mike White, Editing: John M. Valerio, Heather Persons, Scott Turner, Kyle Traynor, Photography: Ben Kutchins, Xavier Grobet, Main cast: Jason Isaacs, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Parker Posey, Sam Nivola, Sam Rockwell, Aimee Lou Wood, Walton Goggins, Leslie Bibb, Michelle Monaghan, Carrie Coon, Duration: 54' per episode.
