Amazon Prime has been pushing The Line of Beauty, a British drama about a poor boy who moves in with his ultra rich, ultra powerful classmate. The trailer shows him smooching with an old guy, so apparently he seduces the Dad. There are three parts, each an hour long, set in 1983, 1986, and 1987. I'll review the 1983 episode, "The Love Chord."
Scene 1: Closeup of a huge mansion in the ritzy Notting Hill section of London. Two guys arrive. "Is this where you live?" Nick Guest (Dan Stevens) asks, overwhelmed. Guest, har har. His classmate Toby (Oliver Coleman): "Well, where my parents live." Sounds like a Saltburn or Brideshead Revisited coming up.
Nick continues to gawk as Toby leads him through the house. An elderly lady with an Italian accent shows him his room: quite a let down, tiny, with awful wallpaper. Don't worry, you'll be in the master suite as soon as you seduce a few family members.
Scene 2: Dinner time. Dad (Tim McInnerny) has just been elected a Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party. In the homophobic 1980s! Their affair is going to cause quite a scandal.
Plot dump: Nick has graduated from Oxford with a First in English, and is now is working on his doctorate, researching Henry James. He has agreed to housesit all summer, while Mom and Dad are in France and Toby is traveling through Europe. Wait, I thought this would be a Nick-Toby romance, or at least Nick seducing Toby first on his way through the family. "Oh, we forgot to mention that you will be taking care of our mentally ill teenage daughter, Cat."
Cut to Toby shaving in a towel (nice physique!), giving Nick the deets. Cat used to cut herself, but she's on medication, and feeling better.
"Does she know...?" Nick asks. Sure, and she's fine with it. Say the Word, idjits! He gazes at Toby's butt. Not good enough -- say it!
Scene 3: Mom, Dad, the housekeeper, and Toby say goodbye and drive away. That night, Nick is reading a Henry James novel, when Cat appears in a bathrobe with booze and two glasses. She lights up a marijuana joint. I thought she knew? Maybe Girlfriend wants to snag herself some gay cock
"What's it like being gay?" she begins. "It seems perfectly normal to me."
Next question: "Have you shagged Toby?" No, he's straight. "But you fancy him." Of course not. Are we going to get an unrequited love plotline? Nick isn't dating anyone at present, so Cat decides to find him a guy.
Scene 4: Nick comes home to find Cat talking to an elderly working-class man, who keeps grinning and gazing lustfully at him. Ulp, not Nick's type! Psych: he's not a hookup, he's just visiting. She has actually been searching the personal ads (remember those?). "Black guy, late 20s, very good looking."
Nick calls to make a date with Black Guy, Late 20s, then rushes downstairs to tell Cat. But she's gone -- and one of the knives is missing from the kitchen! She's cut herself. But she was so happy before. He bandages her wound, then goes to her room and confiscates her knife collection.
Scene 5: As they walk in the garden, Nick asks if Cat knows what causes the urge to cut herself, or if she can tell when it's coming. She doesn't get any advance warning: her mood has nothing to do with it. Suddenly everything suddenly goes "black and glittering," and she has to stop living. He wants to call the parents, but she assures him that it won't happen again. If she has no control over it, how can she promise that?
Cut to evening. Cat doesn't want to go back to her room, so she sleeps on the couch, while Nick plays the piano. Hey, she's trying to sleep!
Scene 6: Nick rushes to an outdoor restaurant for his date with Leo (Don Gilet), the personal ad guy. It's rather awkward. Leo looks for an excuse to dismiss Nick as racist, is disappointed to discover that he isn't rich, and is annoyed when he misunderstands "Let's get going." Neither has a place, so they end up kissing and doing anal in the private garden. Nick is the top. A little of Leo's butt is shown.
Scene 7: Mom and Dad return from France with gifts of foie gras and perfume. Nick and Cat agree that everything was brilliant, so they suggest that he stay on as Cat's attendant. Shouldn't he have training in mental illness, crisis intervention. and such? Of course he can still work on his degree, and he can bring friends over. But can we screw in my bedroom?
Scene 8: They visit Hawkeswood, Mom's brother's estate, which is loaded-down with French impressionist art. Uncle is impressed by Nick's knowledge of 18th century furniture.
Uncle says "Come with me -- I want to show you something," and the whole family flashes salacious grins. This must be the old guy that Nick is snogging in the trailer.
Psych! He doesn't want to show Nick his dick: he has some photos from Henry James' visit to the manor in 1903.
They discuss the guest list. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher can't make it, but a lot of Conservative MPs and the Home Secretary will be there. Ugh! Everyone hates him.
The occasion: Toby's 21st birthday (Nick's school friend, the one who set up the housesitting- attendant gig). He's driving down with his girlfriend. Uncle to Nick: "There are umpteen bedrooms here. As to the precise arrangements, I avert my eyes." Why tell Nick this? Surely he doesn't expect Nick to sleep with Toby.
Scene 9: The party. Cat introduces Nick to Russell, a photographer for The Face. Ulp, she's kissing him! But she doesn't like him: "he's a blinding fuck." Later they have sex on the grass; maybe "blinding fuck is a good thing."
Next up, Nick's other school friend joins him in evaluating the waiters' hotness, especially Tristao from Madeira. In other news, the world-famous, mega-rich Wani Ouradi (Alex Wyndham) is engaged. We see him wading through paparazzi.
Scene 10: The dinner. Toby's Dad gives a speech. Ulp, Tristao from Madeira, the waiter, is glaring at Nick!
Cut to the young people's dance. Amid the drinking, drugs, flashing lights, and Duran Duran, Nick follows Tristao the waiter, but before they can hook up, he finds himself in the sedate old person's party, being asked "What do you think of the 'coloured question'?" Then back to the chase: Tristao offers to meet him at the Main Stairs at 3:00 am. But he looked like he was ready to attack! Apparently in Madeiran culture, "murderous rage" indicates romantic interest.
But Nick is so drunk and tired that he falls asleep on a couch, and misses the hookup!
I'll stop there.
Beefcake: Just Toby in a towel and a bit of Leo's buttGay Characters: A lot, but all closeted. It looks like Nick will continue dating Leo, plus the mega-rich Wani Ouradi (right) and whoever the old dude is.
Toby: I was upset when he turned out to be a minor character.
Cat: The two sections, with Cat as a fragile, easily-disturbed mental patient and suave, self-assured socialite, don't seem to match.
Homophobia: We're starting the Reagan-Thatcher era of political conservatism, an AIDS panic, and homophobic backlash (the "don't mention those types" law, mentioned in my Dr. Who review, appeared during the Thatcher years). I read ahead: lots of Nick's friends and lover die of AIDS, and when Mom and Dad discover that he is gay, they reject him with extreme hatred and nasty accusations.
And I'm worried about a homophobic ending. A review in The New Republic gives the original novel a bad rap: "an anachronistic vision of the [gay person] as a figure always doomed to be unhoused and exiled from happiness, solitary and lonely, without family or friends."
Will I Keep Watching: Probably not. I enjoyed the first episode but things are going to get very dark very quickly.
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