One marriage, two reviews: The White Lotus

The White Lotus. Photo / Supplied

Greg and Zanna review the greatest tropical resort-based comedy mystery ever made .

SCORES
Characters' despicableness: 5
Reviewer's despicableness: Unclear

SHE SAW

After watching the first episode of The White Lotus, Greg was all hopped up on peak TV energy. He was buzzing about the deliciously detestable characters, the witty dialogue, the mystery, the music - especially the music - which he hasn't stopped imitating in weeks. He was so excited by it that one evening when I suggested I had nothing better to do than re-watch another film we were reviewing, he was so deeply hurt I had forgotten it was White Lotus night, he went to bed without saying goodnight.

It's a pandemic production, shot last year entirely on location at The Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea. Cast and crew were quarantined on location (I don't feel sorry for them) and every scene is filmed somewhere within the resort. It's a constraint that works only because it's so stunning and, at a time when travel is impossible, has us drooling for it even more than usual.

Opening with a box of human remains being loaded on to a plane, then flashing back to a week earlier as the despicable rich white VIPs arrive by boat at "their" island paradise, there are honeymooners whose marriage is already falling apart, a dysfunctional family with eye-rolling teens, a self-described "alcoholic lunatic" who has come to scatter her mother's ashes (played impeccably by the brilliant Jennifer Coolidge), a charismatic and camp Australian hotel manager and a staff of hotel workers told to be "pleasant interchangeable helpers" performing "tropical kabuki".

While the show does grapple with the inherent colonial underpinnings of the location, The White Lotus and its creator Mike White have received some criticism for centring white characters, albeit ugly ones, in a story set in Hawaii - quite literally perpetuating the actions of the characters in the show who are using the stolen and sacred land for their own spiritual gain. It's a worthwhile critique and hopefully, at the same time, this story brings to light a grisly truth about capitalism, colonisation and the travel industry.

The performances are outstanding. Barring a few gripes I had with the newly-wed with belated cold feet, the characters are very well drawn and the actors inhabit them perfectly. It has a high cringe rating but not in a Borat kind of way - more an acerbic kind of way. It made me laugh out loud, while maintaining a legitimately compelling dramatic/mystery plot, which is to say it wasn't just Greg who got drunk on The White Lotus daiquiris.

HE SAW

At the end of the final episode, Zanna said she thought it was a nine out of 10. When I asked what she thought made it so good, she said some stuff about the humour, the drama and the intrigue, but I didn't think that was it. Lots of shows have humour, drama and intrigue but still suck. Then she said, "The despicableness of the people was fun."

Yes! That was it. The people were all more or less terrible and were typically terrible in ways relating to their wealth and privilege and - since the privileged terrible are the worst - I knew I was watching something special at the end of each episode, when I realised I was desperate to spend another hour with every one of them. They were either the funniest collection of awful people I've spent an hour with or the inverse - or both.

At its thematic centre, The White Lotus is about the exploitation of those who have wealth and those who are exploited by those with wealth, and how some of the exploited sometimes try to take the power back, and how the odds are stacked against them. In this case, the exploited are primarily Hawaiians and service workers, but friends and family members are also caught in the death-web of asymmetrical power relations. The relationships between all of these people are fraught, dysfunctional and socioculturally provocative but, primarily, they're hilarious.

None of the wealthy people do much, besides mooching around, whining about how hard things are but there's always a sense of propulsion, that we're hurtling towards something bad, which we are: Death.

I told Zanna that while I broadly agreed with her analysis, I thought the wealthy honeymooner whose brutal interaction with a friendly couple in an airport lounge opens the series, was the only character who was truly irredeemably despicable. To that, she said, "Did you identify?"

Because this sounded to me like an implicit accusation, I said: "No, but clearly you think I should have."

"No," she said. "I can't think of anyone you're less like."

I said, "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

She said: "You often say that when I compliment you, like it's the first time it's ever happened. It's not nice."
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"Would you say it's despicable?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes.

The White Lotus is streaming now on Neon.