‘Sex is better than war’ according to Franklin leading man Douglas
It’s great to see him on the box, in no less a role than that of one of America’s founding fathers
Early in Franklin, Michael Douglas’s belated debut in the big, boffo, box-setty second golden age of TV, it’s remarked of him: “You are something new in the world of men.”
Remember when Douglas was that in movies? Not so much leading man as leading mouse.
Okay, a mouse with a rocket launcher in Falling Down, but he wasn’t strong. It was the women who were strong in his terrific 1980s run of sensationalist thrillers Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct and Disclosure.
His father Kirk took on entire Roman legions bare-chested but the padded shoulders of Michael’s business suit offered no protection against one wronged female co-worker or one ignored mistress.
And in multiplexes everywhere, men did the opposite of Sharon Stone and crossed their legs in a show of sympathy for Douglas and recognition of their own emasculation, followed by the simpering plea: “When is this victimisation of men going to stop?!”
Anyway, Franklin, and it’s great to see him on the box, in no less a role than that of one of America’s founding fathers. Benjamin Franklin was many things – a polymath – and it’s in his role as a diplomat that we meet him in 1776, arriving in France by boat, a three-cornered hat atop long, flowing grey hair.
At 79, Douglas moves almost as slowly as Ol’ Joe Biden. He has Franklin speaking hesitant French but, once translated, the man can charm the birds out of the trees.
Also, the oiseaux out of the towering wigs of the ladies of the French beau monde, these being pretend ones, and there’s a coiffure featuring an impressive warship. Its wearer tries for a compliment and Franklin replies: “Madame, I am sorely tempted to climb aboard and man its cannons.”
That’s the sort of remark which would have Disclosure’s Demi Moore filing a sexual harassment complaint, but you could get away with it back then.
“Greed is good” was an era-defining quote in one of Douglas’s non-mouse roles, as Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko.
He sloganeers here: “Sex is better than war. Diplomacy must never be a siege but a seduction.” Cue gasps from the women at his welcome dinner, but in pursuit of French support in his country’s war against England he must impress important men.
“Remind me where America is?” asks one. “Somewhere between India and purgatory.”
Franklin is already much taken with a young harpsichordist, played by Ludivine Sagnier, who was a Lolita-esque muse in the film Swimming Pool way back in 2003, so you might be tempted to wonder if sex is going to prove better than politics.
And funnily enough that’s a question which can also be asked of The Regime, starring Kate Winslet. Though there’s a good deal of chess in Franklin, both real and metaphorical, Douglas still gets to have some fun, puncturing the serious conversation by lifting a bum cheek, letting rip and declaring: “It’s remarkable how one’s mood is improved by the passing of wind.”
Winslet as Elena Vernham, chancellor of a fictitious eastern European country, has opportunity for absurdity. At another welcome dinner, also for an American delegation, she gets up and warbles a truly horrendous version of the softrock classic If You Leave Me Now. If this was Putin there would hopefully be an uprising.
The Regime is a satire penned by Will Tracy, who’s come from the writers’ room on Succession. Though it appears to be set in the here and post-glasnost now – the US are hoping to strike a deal to mine cobalt – Elena rules from a palace which out-chandeliers that of Ceausescu. I’m also put in mind of more-commiethan-commie Albania, which the great Scottish journalist James Cameron called “the featherweight nation with the massive and furious pride” (I suppose his description could also apply to us).
Winslet is obviously having a ball as her nepo-dictator bad-mouths the US in the kind of plummy English accent you imagine oligarch trophywives have perfected during exile in London’s Mayfair. She sashays with such a wiggle in her fabulously tight dresses that any moment it seems she will bump Andrea Riseborough’s housekeeper scuttling alongside right into the next episode.
But not Herbert, also permanently on hand, who was psychotic as a soldier but now tends loyally and lovingly to his boss’s every need and barking whim, beginning with clean-air updates and surely destined to cuckold Elena’s husband before long.