Kate Winslet's new HBO political satire 'The Regime' doubles down on crazy

Satire is tough when the world is so crazy to begin with.

It’s something “Saturday Night Live” has struggled with for at least as long as 2016 when Donald Trump was elected, if not longer. And it’s a challenge for “The Regime,” a new limited series on Max from “Succession” writer Will Tracy. It’s got a great cast, including Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts and an unrecognizable Andrea Riseborough, among others (others including Hugh Grant). And though it is darker, it shares some of the vibes and sensibility of “Veep” or “The Thick of It,” Armando Iannucci’s brilliant shows (also check out “In the Loop”) — but "The Regine" doubles down on the absurdity.

At least let’s hope it’s absurd, and remains so.

What is the new series 'The Regime' about?

It’s about a despotic ruler seizing all the power she can as her grip on her nation, and her sanity, declines. She’s willing to dispense with the truth, the well-being of her people, basic rights and privileges — anything to stay in power, no matter what the cost.

Put that way, it sounds like the fight to become (and remain) Speaker of the House or something, more C-SPAN than political fantasy. But it’s crazier than even that, which lowers the stakes a little.

It’s plenty good — Winslet is never going to disappoint — but it’s not at the level of Iannucci’s work.

Winslet plays Elena Vernham, the chancellor of an unnamed country; somewhere in central Europe is as close as we get to a location. A former doctor, she seized power a few years ago and has grown increasingly power-mad. After soldiers butcher protestors at a cobalt mine, she appoints one of the soldiers Herbert Zubak to her staff. His main role is to test the air around Elena for humidity — she is a first-class hypochondriac and is convinced that the castle has mold, among other beliefs.

Herbert’s fortunes rise and fall and rise again as Elena tries to sort out a deal with the U.S. for cobalt-mining rights (Martha Plimpton is outstanding as the no-nonsense senator negotiating with Elena). Herbert's as crazy as she is, which is part of their attraction. How crazy? Elena keeps the embalmed body of her dead father in the castle, and speaks to him from time to time, still trying to win his approval. (It’s a little hard to get these days.)

The series follows Elena’s increasingly unhinged behavior as the sycophants around her fall all over themselves to cater to her every whim. The exception, kind of, is the palace manager (Riseborough) who is smart enough to both go along and get along, which is crucial for her to tend to her son’s medical needs.

Kate Winslet never disappoints

Herbert, who comes from a mining town in the sticks, is the right man at the right time — which is to say the absolutely wrong one — with his “folk medicine,” hair-trigger violent tendencies and crackpot ideas that he expands to how Elena should run the country.

At one point giant containers of steamed potatoes are placed all around the castle, at Herbert’s request. I’ll leave you to discover the description of the smell via Elena’s husband (Guillaume Gallienne). Theirs is a true love story. They met at medical school. He had a wife and child, but she told him to divorce his wife and marry her, so he did.

Elena is used to getting what she wants.

A lot of the humor comes from her delusions about how beloved she is among her subjects. Even the most-craven bootlickers she surrounds herself with know that everyone thinks her TV appearances in which she sings (!) are awful, but that force is what keeps everyone in line. A startled horse will change the equation. Even as things start to fall apart, she says, and evidently really believes, that “her people” will come back to her.

You have to have a little of that mindset to succeed in politics (if you can call how she runs her country politics). She has it in the extreme. Credit Tracy for infusing “The Regime” with as much cynicism as it deserves (a lot), and for realizing that there aren’t necessarily happy endings in life, or endings at all, really.

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How to watch 'The Regime'

Premieres Sunday, March 3, on HBO; streaming on Max.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kate Winslet loses it in 'The Regime,' political satire on HBO and Max