A remake of the fantastic Ian Richardson helmed House of Cards, which hit the sweet spot by being almost too accurate in its portrayal of the leadership struggle after Margaret Thatcher stepped down which occurred at the same time the first episode aired. This House of Cards features many similarities with the original but, with the help of Beau Willimon (writer of The Ides of March) and the brilliant as always Kevin Spacey in the FU role, this time Underwood not Urquhart, it becomes its own beast.
Frank Underwood, despite all his hard work helping the President get into office, is rejected the position of Secretary of State despite a promise to be given it during the campaign. Alongside his wife Claire (Robin Wright), Frank slips further and further into murky territory to work his way up the political ladder devouring the campaign, as he so eloquently puts it, “one bite at a time”. One of those bites is Peter Russo, a congressman with a history of substance abuse and a love of prostitutes. Using this knowledge to his advantages, Frank uses Peter as one of his many pawns. Russo starts off as a bit of a wishy washy character but, as the series progresses, Corey Stoll’s performance is heartbreaking. Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) is also another pawn, a journalist at The Herald who Frank uses to leak stories to, helping her work her way to infamy in an almost Faustian agreement.
House of Cards is not a show of likeable characters. The closest you even come to anyone likeable is Russo. Everyone is ready and willing to backstab whoever they can to get to the top, regardless of their profession. It’s something that we’ve all seen before but watching Spacey’s Underwood navigate his web of lies with Machiavellian malice is extremely entertaining to watch.
Spacey himself is by far the best part of the series who, despite having some mediocre dialogue (there’s no real Sorkin quips here and the fourth wall breaking monologues aren’t quite as Shakespearean as Richardson’s), really puts on an excellent performance, making you almost root for him despite some of the dark (and I mean dark) depths he goes to to succeed. So too, as mentioned before, does Corey Stoll, giving some heart to the pawns who, in the original, were quickly discarded.
David Fincher, who directs the first two episodes, puts his mark on the series which is present throughout (he really needs to do more TV work) and, although it lags a bit in the middle to look into Frank’s past and the ending is a little unsatisfactory (although we have 13 more episodes coming soon). House of Cards is an entertaining watch, even just to see Kevin Spacey do what he does best!
