What is it? A six-hour fictionalised 20th-century schlock-fest set in a non-fictional Berlin hotel.
Why you’ll love it: If you’re a connoisseur of American TV movies featuring plucky young heroines in period dress chasing their destiny, but have little need of grit and accuracy, this is the German drama for you.
Do you miss Downton Abbey’s breakneck pace when tackling bygone important events? Do you want to feel the wind in your hair as 20th century European history whips past you like a speeding removal van? Step this way and meet Sonja Schadt, a 93-year-old woman, speaking from 1997, with a story to tell.
The Hotel Adlon is real but Sonja is made up, so reality can’t even excuse the ludicrous plot twists and coincidences that go on here. We begin in 1904 with a young girl giving birth after an ill-advised romance with one of the servants. Old Sonja pops up now and again to fill in gaps in the story. SO many gaps.
Baby Sonja is passed off as her mother’s sister to save a scandal and, for one reason or another, ends up living in an apartment at the titular hotel as a young woman, once her family have all died or left for pastures new. The three feature-length episodes tackle a chunk of the century from 1904 to 1997 with a fair bit of time-hopping and skimming required, not to mention some questionable aging make-up, to get us to the present day in time for the big finish.
Sonja, in ignorance of her beginnings, settles into her privileged life while her sister/mother runs away to America to be a lesbian. Meanwhile, Herr Adlon Sr, Sonja’s godfather, begins construction of his grand hotel in the city, declaring his intention to build the best hotel in the world, etc. You’ve seen Mr Selfridge. “You won’t just spend the night at the Adlon. The Adlon will be an experience,” he says, gesturing at a large white model of his luxury dream palace.
Gentlemen sit in smoke-filled drawing rooms, one hand in their waistcoats, discussing industry while the women negotiate their way around the social restrictions of the day. “We have had the vote for seven years,” says one of them in the way no one ever would. Even allowing for translation, the subtitles betray a script that has been designed to get the plot across as directly as possible, no digressions. We’ve two world wars to get through. Never mind social unrest, universal suffrage and the arrival of short jazz bobs for all. It’s only lucky that the sinking of the Titanic wasn’t a big story in Germany or we would really be in trouble. Basically, someone saw Downton Abbey, got themselves a multimillion euro budget and, two years later, this popped out.
The visual motif – the show’s Iron Throne – is the most incredibly ugly bronze and marble fountain depicting a herd of elephants who all appear to be trying to run away from it. It remains in the lobby through the decades as some kind of symbol, perhaps of the owner’s colonial past. And it is the scene of many a meet-cute, all of which are made of purest emmental so heavily do they rely on someone dropping something and then both parties diving to retrieve the something before locking eyes. It really is the most derivative nonsense despite sterling efforts of some of the cast, particularly Josefine Preuß as Sonja (from the ages of 16 to about 60 – even she couldn’t pull off early 90s, talcum powder or no).
The middle episode knocks the jazz era into a cocked hat, ending with the Reichstag on fire and very bad things happening elsewhere as the Nazi’s tighten their grip on Germany and all-pervading gloom sets in. The final episode is the second world war, calling at the Nazi trials and terminating back at the hotel where it all began.
A lot of the social eruptions happen outside the window. Actors peer out as the sounds of angry mobs are played in and, occasionally, the editor cuts to grainy news footage of the time. It’s not exactly seamless and feels oddly tinpot for the purported €10m (£8.7m) budget. It’s so excessively American in its tone and look that there doesn’t seem to be a single natural ingredient involved. The whole thing ends like some giant Werther’s commercial and leaves a sticky residue.
Where: Walter Presents on All4
Length: Three two-hour episodes.
Standout episode: The first instalment, focusing on the domestic life of the family and really big chandeliers, is the most bearable. After that the writer tries to tackle fascism, racism and war and they shouldn’t have.
If you liked Hotel Adlon watch: Mr Selfridge (Netflix), Grand Hotel (DVD).
