“The Romanoffs” is the new TV series written, directed and produced by the genius of Matthew Weiner, and it is one of the most anticipated titles of this fall!
We had the chance to see a preview of “The Romanoffs” during the FeST and it left us delighted! Are you ready to meet the descendants of the Russian royal family?
Title
“The Romanoffs.”
Data Sheet
It is an anthological and dramatic TV series divided into 8 episodes that last roughly one hour each. Available now on Prime Video.
In Front of the Camera
Since it is an anthology series, the cast changes in each episode, but the silver thread is given by the fact that the protagonists are the descendants, or the presumed ones, of the Romanoffs, the Russian royal family. During the FeST, the festival of the TV series whose first edition in Milan (October 11th -14th), we had the opportunity to see the preview, in English, of the first episode, titled “The Violet Hour,” starring Marthe Keller, Aaron Eckhart (“The Dark Knight,” “Sully”), Inès Melab and Louise Bourgoin. Among the names that will appear in the later episodes instead, there are those of Christina Hendricks (“Mad Men”), Isabelle Huppert (“La cérémonie,” “Elle”) and Ron Livingston (“The Conjuring,” “Tully”).
Who’s Got the Typewriter
Behind the screenplay of “The Romanoffs” we find the one and only Matthew Hoffman Weiner, creator, executive producer and principal screenwriter of the successful TV series “Mad Men,” as well as screenwriter and executive producer of the last two seasons of “The Sopranos.”
What to Know (ABSOLUTELY NO SPOILERS)
The tragic story of the end of the Romanoffs is sadly popular: on July 17th, 1918, the Bolsheviks killed the entire family of Tsar Nicholas II. Since the corpses of the two youngest children, Anastasia and Aleksej, were not originally found, the legend that the young Grand Duchess had survived the massacre began to spread. This uncertainty led to the fact that, in the past, several women had claimed to be Anastasia. The story also inspired the creation of successful films such as “Anastasia,” thanks to which Ingrid Bergman won the Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and the homonymous animated movie.
The bodies of the royal brothers were then found in 2007 in a ditch separated from that of the rest of the family, and this marked the end of Anastasia’s myth. It did not conclude however the list of people that claim to be descendants of the Romanoffs: and this is what inspires series, which follows the stories of several protagonists, from the fallen aristocrats in Paris to the film celebrities in the United States, going through investigative journalists in Mexico City, who are, or believe to be, the descendants of the Russian royal family.
The first episode, set in Paris, sees as the protagonist a rich and noble old woman (descendant of Tsar Nicholas II) who lives in a wonderful apartment that her nephew and his companion want to own: the lady, however, has no intentions to die that soon and so the couple is stressed by the long wait and by her difficult temper. To complicate even more the climate is the arrival of the old lady’s new carer, a young Muslim girl who, overcoming the initial prejudices shown against her, will succeed in the incredible feat of conquering the heart of the woman and softening her behavior.
What You’ll Need
You just need a little knowledge of the Romanoffs’s history to better understand the background that links all the stories. Then it’s up to you to discover this TV series!
What They Say
“We’re at a place in our history where people are looking for a close connection to their roots, and for some kind of revelation about who they are,” said Weiner about the TV Series. ”There’s great debate about who is a Romanoff and what happened to the Romanoffs. The story for me is that we’re all questioning who we are and who we say we are.”
Out of 5 Monkeys:
