DAN WEBSTER:
As a screenwriter and sometime director, Mike White has a curious temperament. While his work, both in the movies and on television, has broad popular appeal, his basic themes are more darkly comic—and sometimes just simply dark—rather than anything remotely feel-good romantic.
Not a surprising twist for a guy who wrote two episodes of the short-lived 1999 miniseries Freaks and Geeks. White’s latest foray into popular entertainment is the critically acclaimed Max miniseries The White Lotus, which just finished its third season. Revolving around a chain of posh hotels, all appealing to an elite clientele, each show is a study in group dynamics.
Season One was set in Hawaii, Season Two in Sicily and now Season Three in Thailand. And while there is little carry-over from one season to the next, the latest installment does reference part of what occurred in Sicily, that being the suspicious death of the heiress Tanya (played by Jennifer Coolidge).
Season Three begins its eight-episode run with a captivating sequence: A young man, whom we come to know as Zion (played by Nicholas Duvernay) is taking a meditation class when the sound of gunfire breaks his concentration. While fearing for the life of his mother, Belinda (played by Natasha Rothwell), Zion goes off in search of her… and is repelled when he slips into a resort pool and bumps into what appears to be a floating corpse.
And so the overarching plotline of this first and the following seven episodes of Season Three is set: Who is the character behind the corpse, and what is the story behind what seems to be a violent death?
Cut to a week earlier and we see arriving on a boat to the resort several of the season’s other principals. We have the Ratliff family, father Timothy (a financier from North Carolina played by Jason Isaacs), mother Victoria (played by Parker Posey), sons Saxon (played by Patrick Schwarzenegger) and Lochlan (played by Sam Nivola) along with daughter Piper (played by Sarah Catherine Hook).
Also on the boat are Rick (played by Walton Goggins) and his younger, free-spirited girlfriend Chelsea (played by Aimee Lou Wood). Arriving separately is a trio of longtime friends, the TV actress Jaclyn (played by Michelle Monaghan), the country-club wife Kate (played by Leslie Bibb) and the recently divorced corporate attorney Laurie (played by Carrie Coon).
Other important characters are the security guard Gaitok (played by Tayme Thapthimthong), the woman he longs for Mook (played by the Thai-born K-pop star Lalisa Monobal), the hotel’s co-owner Sritala Hollinger (played by Lek Patravadi) and her husband Jim (played by Scott Glenn).
And, finally, we have Gary, or Greg (played by John Gries), husband of the late Tanya from Seasons One and Two, who is living large in Thailand with his young companion Chloe (played by Charlotte Le Bon). Gary/Greg’s presence scares Belinda, a White Lotus employee from Hawaii who recognizes him and suspects he was behind Tanya’s death.
Each character has pressing issues that get revealed over the eight episodes. Financier Timothy is facing illegal investment charges, wife Victoria pops Lorazepam like they were Tic Tacs, elder Saxon is a preening narcissist, while both Piper and Lochlan are still searching for identities. Our old-friend female threesome tests the boundaries of their decades-long friendships, while Rick is tortured by the damage he believes hotel owner Jim did to his father.
Meanwhile, security-guard Gaitok endures a crisis of conscience involving the conflict between his Buddhist beliefs and his career ambitions, which intensifies even as he strives to deepen his relationship with Mook, whose character seems ever more vapid as the series wears on.
But, then, quirks of character—particularly among the rich and privileged—are typical of White, the series’ creator, screenwriter and director. The problem is that, for some of us, such foibles make it hard to like, or even relate to, the characters he has created. This particularly is the case in Season Three, when greed corrupts some, jealousy damages others and a quest for revenge seems to trump even the most sweet-natured of spiritual sentiments.
For Spokane Public Radio, I’m Dan Webster.
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Movies 101 host Dan Webster is the senior film critic for Spokane Public Radio and a blogger for Spokesman.com.