\n<\/p>\n
H<\/span>ostage is a political thriller, and observes the conventions in many ways. The pace is absolutely flawless, it\u2019s twisty, it has emotional heft. The British prime minister, Abigail Dalton, played by Suranne Jones, faces her husband, Alex Anderson (Ashley Thomas), being kidnapped. Their marriage is well drawn \u2013 \u201cit\u2019s happy, it\u2019s assured, they\u2019re supportive of each other,\u201d Jones says. As we chat in Netflix\u2019s central London offices, she\u2019s always saying five things at once, only one of them out loud. Here, the subtext (I\u2019ve decided) is: it\u2019s actually pretty skilled work, creating a not-schmaltzy, passionate but familiar love match in which all the audience\u2019s hopes and prayers are with the abducted spouse. That\u2019s why normally when fictional politicians are the victims of a family kidnapping, it\u2019s one of their kids.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the French president, Julie Delpy\u2019s Vivienne Toussaint, is also in Britain, is also being blackmailed, and has her own dilemmas: principally, does she go over to the dark side, by echoing the far right on anti-immigrant narratives, or stick to her principles, whatever those may still be. Delpy is hilarious on this, and actually most things. \u201cThat\u2019s something I found interesting in the show. Sometimes I wonder, I truly wonder, is there any politician who really has a conscience? I look at Macron \u2013 I cannot believe someone with a conscience wouldn\u2019t be questioning themselves, questioning who they have picked [as a cabinet], questioning what\u2019s going on with French politics.\u201d \u201cYou really<\/em> wonder whether any<\/em> politician has a conscience?\u201d I ask, just to be clear. \u201cWell, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Julie Delpy as Vivienne Toussaint, the French president in Hostage.<\/span> Photograph: Kevin Baker\/Netflix<\/p>\n Hostage came about through a lot of to-and-fro between Matt Charman, the writer and creator, and Suranne Jones \u2013 the pair shared an agent 10 years ago and always got on. He\u2019s most famous for Bridge of Spies, which Steven Spielberg directed and the Coen brothers co-wrote, in 2015. \u201cEvery time I watch Suranne,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019m aware of how relatable and human she is. I thought: \u2018OK, if she were prime minister, maybe I would feel differently about political drama. What if we bought\u00a0ourselves goodwill with someone like Suranne, that would allow an audience just for a second\u00a0to say: \u2018Hang on a minute. Let me hear her out\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n As much as Charman is a storyteller, enamoured of the thriller form, he also has this surprising sense of civic purpose, of using the show to suggest that maybe if we thought of politicians as fully human, they might turn out to be, well, at least human-adjacent. \u201cSomeone used the phrase \u2018sophisticated protein\u2019, and it\u2019s one of those American phrases that makes you wince, but truthfully it\u2019s quite an interesting formulation. People might enjoy the propulsiveness of the thriller, but they want the values of the lead character to be about something and their backstory to be meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n The result is quite unusual, in so far as \u2013 unlike all political thrillers \u2013 it doesn\u2019t remind you of any other. It\u2019s a little biting but it\u2019s not House of Cards cynical, it has a breakneck pace but it\u2019s not 24, the dialogue is sharp but never played for laughs. Jones is relatable, patriotic, trying her best, absolutely in love with her kidnapped husband, an almost nostalgic portrait of an idealised prime minister from more innocent times. Delpy is far more worldly, far more compromised, both a better fit for the turbulence of modernity and more likely to be capsized by it. The whole dynamic marches in an interesting syncopation with the real-life politics that unfolded as they shot it, in which the far-right pressures on the European political landscape have become much more pronounced, and through that lens you could squint at it and see it almost as documentary drama. Then there\u2019ll be a giant explosion outside Downing Street or a kidnapper in an eerie mask, and you\u2019re back in the world of the blockbuster summer thriller.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe hardest thing about writing something that\u2019s in dialogue with where we are now,\u201d Charman says, \u201cis that every time something happens in real politics, mainly <\/em>you\u2019re thinking: \u2018What does this mean for my kids, is the world OK?\u2019\u00a0But on a low level, you\u2019re thinking: \u2018Does this mean my drama is going to be out of date when it comes out?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was very clear as a story,\u201d Delpy says. \u201cTo me it seemed very accessible, and actually quite entertaining.\u201d She\u2019s a breath of fresh air, talking about her work, never breathy, always surprisingly impartial, like a mother saying about her children: \u201cYes, the middle one\u2019s quite intelligent, but the youngest, not so much.\u201d She\u2019ll never buy into the idea that politicians are inherently interesting \u2013 \u201cat least in France, I\u2019ve never really been amazed by any of them\u201d \u2013 and thinks, in some ways, drama is miles from the reality of politics, by definition, because real\u00a0life has lost the plot.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way politics works now, is that they bombard you with outrageous things, so that you forget what happened yesterday,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s almost impossible to stand against anything. It\u2019s a very difficult time.\u201d Yet one central theme, the demonisation of migrants for political capital, dominates her character\u2019s arc. \u201cShe starts off as someone who isn\u2019t flirting with the extreme right, and she slowly starts to go there \u2013 which is something you see happening a little bit to everyone in the centre; they\u2019re not necessarily ideologically far right, but they\u2019re feeling they have to flirt with it, to comply with the perceived demands of the electorate. They think it\u2019s better if we slide to the right to stay in power, rather than having the far right in power. I think they really do believe that, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Tough at the top \u2026 Deply and Jones in Hostage<\/span> Photograph: Des Willie\/Netflix<\/p>\n Drama is making its own, more subtle compromises with the new right, which is to avoid \u201cnot just leftwing projects but anything that has any views on social issues at all. Unless it\u2019s pure entertainment with no political consciousness whatsoever, unless it\u2019s The Troll 5, it\u2019s hard to get it made,\u201d Delpy says. \u201cI made a film recently called Meet the Barbarians, it\u2019s about refugees. And it was really hard to find funding for it. And it\u2019s a comedy, it\u2019s really entertaining. Hostage also was not the easiest thing on the planet. Of course they had Netflix, and once you have that all is well, but every project has its hurdle.\u201d<\/p>\n Suranne Jones is also an executive producer on Hostage. \u201cI was born with a clipboard,\u201d she says, \u201cliterally, came out of my mum\u2019s womb, ticking things off on my to-do list. I have no interest in directing, no interest in telling other actors what to do or my vision. But finding new talent, putting teams together, the writers\u2019 room process, the imagining of what a show could look like, the aftermath \u2013 I love all that.\u201d It made her very unprecious about the edit. \u201cI really felt I needed to put the human into the prime minister, constantly. And, actually, we probably edited a lot of that out.\u201d<\/p>\n Hostage is plainly female-led, in the sense that the leads are women, as are the two directors \u2013 Isabelle Sieb and Amy Neil \u2013 but that doesn\u2019t feel like a laboured or radical act. You don\u2019t get the sense that these fictional female leaders have brought an emotional range that men couldn\u2019t possibly have, nor that you\u2019re in an idealised near-future where electorates have finally woken up to the fact that women can be in charge. \u201cIn the US, they have this very negative view of women in politics, but it\u2019s not like that in Europe,\u201d Delpy says simply.<\/p>\n <\/span>Captive audience \u2026 Ashley Thomas (right) in Hostage.<\/span> Photograph: Ollie Upton\/Netflix<\/p>\n If anything, Hostage makes a subtler gender point, that the differences within the sexes are greater than any between them. \u201cSuranne and Julie present such a different view of what a powerful female leader is,\u201d Charman says. \u201cJulie\u2019s got this incredible directing career, an amazing track record in French and American cinema. And there are not many people who burn as brightly on screen as Suranne. I\u00a0thought: \u2018what would it look like for them to go toe to toe?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n A lot of people have called Hostage the new Bodyguard, partly because it\u2019s so satisfying as drama \u2013 the way it races, the way it pays off, the way you don\u2019t feel as if you\u2019re being played, even though someone\u2019s always in charge of your emotions and it\u2019s definitely not you. Yet you wouldn\u2019t call it escapist, when so many moments and gestures in it clarify rather than distract from the chaos and impossible choices of the world we\u2019re in. Or, at least, the world we\u2019re in today. Julie Delpy says: \u201cOne friend of mine, who survived the second world war, said: \u2018Things can always get worse. You think you\u2019re in the worst situation but, unfortunately, there\u2019s always worse than what you think is the worst.\u2019\u201d Against her sardonic pessimism, Charman can sometimes sound almost innocent. \u201cIf you can pull the humanity through the thriller all the way to the end, then hopefully you\u2019ve got the journey that you always wanted to go on,\u201d he says, winningly. After all, thrillers need some <\/em>innocence.<\/p>\n Hostage is on Netflix on <\/em>21 August<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hostage is a political thriller, and observes the conventions in many ways. The pace is absolutely flawless, it\u2019s twisty, it has emotional heft. The British prime minister, Abigail Dalton, played by Suranne Jones, faces her husband, Alex Anderson (Ashley Thomas), being kidnapped. Their marriage is well drawn \u2013 \u201cit\u2019s happy, it\u2019s assured, they\u2019re supportive of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[8591,8594,8593,966,5314,7383,1913,8592,1779,7544],"class_list":{"0":"post-14996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-blackmail","9":"tag-breakneck","10":"tag-hostage","11":"tag-jones","12":"tag-kidnap","13":"tag-netflixs","14":"tag-political","15":"tag-suranne","16":"tag-television","17":"tag-thriller"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}