NOT-SO-GENTLE MEN
Guy Ritchie’s new Netflix crime caper, ‘The Gentlemen’, delightfully smashes up two genres: the crumbling façade of the British upper class and the suave, criminal underbelly, writes
Iraised my son to be a gentleman, but customs such as a man opening a door for a woman or letting her enter a room before he does is now frowned upon. So what is a gentleman? Guy Ritchie’s new Netflix series, The Gentlemen, highlights the vagaries of the concept. Theo James portrays Eddie, the second son of the Duke of Halstead. He is the “spare” who knows his older brother will inherit the land and responsibilities that go with the title when his father dies. But when pater pops off and leaves Eddie the title and the land, bypassing his older brother, he realises the crumbling estate is being propped up by money from an illegal enterprise being run on the grounds.
This eight-part series is essentially the story of the corruption of straight-as-anarrow Eddie as he comes to grips with his innate ability to do whatever it takes to survive, including using the handy skills he acquired in the British army.
While many still hold families who created the British Empire in high esteem, it doesn’t take long before we’re reminded that those “gentlemen” used brute force, manipulation and ruthlessness to leverage their “noble” status. Just like in the US, where the “robber barons” of the Gilded Age such as Carnegie, Vanderbilt and Rockefeller became the power brokers of that society, the aristocracy in Europe have also always got their hands dirty before pulling on their white gloves.
Fans of Ritchie (of Sherlock Holmes, Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels fame) will know what to expect if they watched his 2019 film, also called The Gentlemen.There’s lots of banter and, if you’re a fan of British humour, The Gentlemen will delight you. There are frequent juxtapositions which allow you to see the story from one character’s viewpoint and then another’s. Ritchie has long succeeded in making entertaining films about underworld shenanigans where gangs are pitted against each other and we root for the “good” bad guy.
It’s these characteristics that attracted James (The White Lotus, the Divergent series, The Time Traveler’s Wife) to the role. “I liked the central conceit, which was very ‘Guy Ritchie’,” he says. “He hadn’t done the crumbling façade of the British Empire vs the underbelly of a suave, criminal empire before. The smashing of those two genres together and the humour attracted me. It’ sa comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It deals with insane situations involving the swagger of the aristocracy and has excellent music, lighting and clothes.”
The show highlights the importance of costume in creating a character. The corrosion of James’s
“gentleman” is at the heart of the story and is reflected in his clothing. James wasn’t charmed by his character’s early wardrobe choices. “He has an evolution in the way he looks and walks, and the clothes he wears. He returns as a soldier wearing ‘country-posh’ clothing crewnecks with terrible shirts popping out,” he says. “As his confidence grows, and his soul is darkened, his clothing becomes more structured. You see it in the tailored coats. Ultimately, he dons a three-piece tweed suit that gives you a sense of what it’s like to be in that world.”
Speaking from London, Kaya Scodelario (The Maze Runner, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) agrees. “Acquiring my character Susie Glass’s edgy look was a collaborative effort,” she says. “Often male directors will say: ‘I don’t know what she’d wear — figure it out.’ But Ritchie was specific about what he wanted, though I had some input with the costume designer, Loulou Bontemps.
“I used the opportunity to build the character. I wanted her to have long nail extensions to show she could be in charge of this empire and navigate it without getting her hands dirty.” She pauses. “I didn’t realise when I made the decision that I’d have to spend six months of my life with these ridiculously long nails!”
“She’s a chameleon, and you see that in the way she dresses. When she’s on a country estate, she’s in tweeds. When she’s in London, she’s more sexy, like Kate Moss, in trench coats and high heels. She knows how to use these tools to gain people’s trust and manipulate them. But it’s never about her gender or looks,” she says.
Because of a contract between Susie’s father and the duke to grow pot on the manor’s land to keep the family flush, the two men’s offspring, Susie and Eddie, are forced to work together. But she’s no adjunct. “I didn’t want to make her a powerful woman. I wanted to make her a powerful person. She’s good at what she does and unapologetic about it. She never uses her femininity. She has multiple other ways of manipulating people and getting what she wants.”
It would be criminal not to mention Daniel Ings as Freddy Horniman, Eddie’s older brother. He has a memorable scene in which he dons a cockerel suit which has to be witnessed to be understood. Though the scene starts out comedically, Ines notes that it “takes on deeply disturbing tones of torture that catch the essence of the show’s ability to veer between humour and darkness”.
Those nuances required the cast to trust their director. “We were required to leap without understanding the big picture of the scene,” says James. “There’d be scenes that were insane, where we weren’t sure what was happening. But when we saw the final product, we got it.”
Part of the film’s message, notes James, is that “old money” is the backbone of British culture, and that the class system with all its problems still influences how we understand that society. We used to think power existed in those places, and it did. The idea of The Gentlemen is that it’s a crumbling façade. The real power is held by the working class, who build wealth from nothing, rather than simply having it handed to them on a silver platter.