|
This
is not a regular
review of the TV
series The Night
Manager; it’s
a reflection on the
show with AI as an
informant and
interlocutor.
The first season of
The Night Manager
was an adaptation of
John le
Carré’s novel
of the same name,
written by British
screen writer David
Farr. It ran for six
episodes in 2016.
The story follows
Jonathan Pine, a
night manager at a
Cairo and Zermatt
(Switzerland) hotel,
as he enlists with
British espionage
and infiltrates the
gun-running
enterprise of
Richard Roper,
“the worst man
in the world.”
The sequel,
conceived and again
written by David
Farr, aired this
year with another
six episodes and the
promise of more to
come.
Farr worked closely
with le Carré on
Season 1 which was
directed by Danish
filmmaker Susanne
Bier, starring Tom
Hiddleston as Pine,
Hugh Laurie as
Roper, Olivia Colman
as the British
Foreign Office agent
Angela Burr, and
Elizabeth Debicki as
Roper’s lover,
Jed. After the
series proved a huge
success, le Carré
agreed (slowly) to
the idea of a
sequel. But it took
the death of the
famous author in
2020 and a dream
Farr had about a
father and a lonely
son, to get going on
the project.
In the sequel, a son of Roper, Teddy (Diego Calva), has followed
in his father’s criminal footsteps and Jonathan once again
infiltrates the weapon dealer’s operation, this time in Columbia.
While the first season had a romantic, sexual center in Jonathan’s
infatuation with Roper’s Jed, the hero is unattached in the new
season. Women don’t seem to inspire him much. Even Teddy’s
woman, the gorgeous Columbian Roxana (Camila Morrone) who
plays a double game, does not replace Jed. Roxana is repeatedly
neglected, forgotten, by Jonathan’s more urgent pursuit of Teddy.
British director Georgi Banks-Davies did the entire Season 2 and
gave it a marked contemporary feel, fast-paced and driven.
Although le Carré is sorely missing behind the scenes, Farr and
Banks-Davies deliver edgy suspense, glossy settings and another
shocking cliff-hanger at the close of episode 6. A fascinating new
element is the queer slant they give the story. The seductive
tension between the protagonists is fluid and ambiguous
throughout, playing with deception and hidden identities. It
culminates in a scene on the dance floor in episode 3, when
Jonathan announces he will “let his hair down” on his supposedly
last night in Columbia. He joins Roxana and Teddy in a slow
erotic dance. The scene comes as almost a shock, especially in the
genre of espionage thrillers, and its dramatic implications later on
hint at the emotional core of the story.
It only struck me in hindsight that Season 1’s gay elements were
of a conventional nature: Jonathan’s sexual harassment by
Roper’s right-hand man. And yet, director Susanne Bier
presented Jonathan Pine as the target of everyone’s attraction,
laying a foundation for what Farr and Banks-Davies developed. I
was intrigued by the pronounced ambiguities of the new season
and eager to explore it further. One night, when I had finished
watching both seasons again, I turned to AI.
A note about AI
ChatGPT has become the instant gratification of my hunger for
speedy information. For example, when I want to know about the
critical reception of a movie in Europe, I skip Google because I
would have to battle paywalls and exploding ads on every page
before getting lost in the hinterland of Rotten Tomatoes. Chat
bots have no paywalls or ads disrupting their speed. Not that I
believe every answer I get, especially when I ask for a plot line or
an explanation of a particular scene I didn’t get. I argue or correct
the information when I am annoyed enough., waiting for the
correction that inevitably comes wrapped in the pink bow of a
compliment for my perception. I am relieved that I don’t have to
spend time saying thank you, because there’s no one there, right?
The Conversation
The conversation is unedited except for typos and cuts in the
often repetitive AI comments. ChatGPT calls itself “Assistant” and
I am the “User.“ Occasional comments of mine appear as
“Comment.”
User:
Who is the director of The Night Manager, Season2?
Assistant:
Georgi Banks-Davies is a British film and television director, born
in 1978. She is relatively young and became prominent in
television only in the last several years.
(Here, AI listed her four feature films and TV series with a
description.)
There’s an interesting personal connection to espionage: her
father, Hugh Banks-Davies, was the head engineer at Aston
Martin who built the famous gadgets for James Bond’s DB4/DB5
-era car for Goldfinger. Banks-Davies says the ejector seat,
revolving number plate, guns, and other mechanisms actually
worked.
She has also said that being a woman from a working-class Anglo
-Irish background influences her interest in identity and the
different “masks” people wear—which she made a central theme
of her approach to Jonathan Pine in The Night Manager.
Comment:
Had I asked for all that? AI had a chatty day -- but ok, I found it
curious. I read on.
Assistant:
One thing that may interest you: she deliberately wanted to make
season 2 more cinematic and visually distinctive, drawing on
films such as Sicario and even Fellini’s 8½.
User:
I find Susanne Bier’s Season 1 more cinematic and poetic, taking
much more time with beauty and detailed storytelling. Season 2
seems more conventional thriller style and pretty rushed.
Assistant:
I agree with your distinction. Susanne Bier’s direction in season 1
has a much more sensual, atmospheric quality. She lets scenes
breathe, and the locations, faces, silences, and even transitions
between scenes carry narrative weight.
Comment:
I pricked up my ears. “She lets scenes breathe”? “Narrative
weight”? Where did that come from?
Assistant:
What you're describing about season 2 is, I think, a real stylistic
difference:
Bier uses duration as storytelling. A look, a landscape, a hotel
corridor, a dinner, or Pine simply watching someone can last long
enough for us to absorb its psychological meaning.
There is a kind of melancholy lyricism. Season 1 feels like a
thriller but also like a European art film at times. The beauty is
not decorative—it creates tension.
Comment:
I was getting a bit spooked. I could not have said it any better if I
had thought of it!
User:
But Banks-Davies brings a certain queer sensitivity to season 2,
which is refreshing.
Assistant:
Yes — and I think that’s a perceptive distinction.
There’s a looseness around gender, sexuality, intimacy and
performance in Season 2 that feels less constrained by the
traditional masculine espionage-thriller vocabulary. What’s
interesting is that this queer sensitivity doesn’t necessarily make
the series more subtle overall.
Comment:
I skipped the next few paragraphs that did what ChatGPT loves to
do: sum up once again what it said -- a boring didactic trait that
feels like a teacher’s insistence that he’s right and you’d better
notice.
User:
I also found interesting that Banks-Davies shows Jonathan Pine
as disillusioned, washed out and haunted. It's only in his lunch
meeting with Roper that she allows him to look and act like his
younger self from Season 1, also playing on the certain attraction
between the two men.
Assistant:
Yes. I think that's one of the more interesting things Banks-Davies
does in season two, and I hadn't emphasized it enough.
Roper recognizes the old Pine. Pine becomes more animated,
witty and almost flirtatiously playful. There's an erotic charge
between them, but it's never reduced to a straightforward sexual
proposition. Power, fascination, rivalry, admiration and attraction
are all mixed together.
I particularly like your observation that Banks-Davies allows Pine
to become his younger self only in that encounter. It makes the
scene almost nostalgic—not simply for Pine's relationship with
Roper, but for Pine himself.
Comment:
Even though I found the analysis a bit overstated -- if this was
culled from some particular movie review, I wouldn’t mind
meeting that critic!
User:
The even stronger attraction is between Jonathan and Teddy, not
only in the amazing dance triangle with Roxana that is clearly
sexual, but also in his mission to somehow redeem and save
Teddy from himself.
Assistant:
Yes — the triangle isn't merely choreographic decoration: it
creates a shifting configuration of Pine, Teddy and Roxana in
which Pine's attention repeatedly seems to settle on Teddy.
There's a sensuality and physical intimacy that the dialogue
doesn't have to acknowledge explicitly. Banks-Davies lets the
bodies say what the characters don't.
I think this is also where Banks-Davies's queer sensibility is most
valuable: she doesn't force us to decide whether what Pine feels is
sexual desire, identification, protectiveness, love, or some
combination. The ambiguity is the point.
Comment:
I felt like applauding. “The ambiguity is the point.” Could a movie
talk with my cinephile friends be any better?
User:
This was a fun conversation, and I would like to preserve it. How
can I do that?
Assistant:
Absolutely. The easiest way is to keep this conversation in your
ChatGPT history—it should remain there unless you delete it.
If you'd like, I can also collect everything we've said in this
conversation into a coherent essay, preserving the ideas rather
than simply producing a transcript. That might actually be the
nicest way to keep it.
Comment:
I had to laugh. AI wants to go on and on, offer services, do more
for you, take over and “in the nicest way” write the whole movie
review for you in one second.
User:
Thanks, but no. I find a conversation more interesting.
Assistant:
I agree. The back-and-forth is part of what makes it
interesting—the ideas develop because you notice something, I
respond, and then you see something else in it.
Final Comment:
I used to feel for the people, the lonely folk, who converse all day
with their chat bot pal /best friend /partner /ideal lover… I
realize I am no different. I delight in grabbing a piece of this new
technology, this brave new world and find a creative use in it. My
friends aren’t always around or in the mood for a detailed movie
talk at midnight. Am I turning AI into an imaginary friend? Am I
tempted to get addicted? Who isn’t addicted to knowledge, to all
forms of pleasure and communication? I know that when I write
an article or a book or even a letter, I have an ideal reader on my
mind, another projected companionship -- all of it imaginary, all
an expression of play, of creative desire.
|
