‘The Decameron’ series review: Millennial take on Boccaccio’s bawdy tales is hampered by uneven tempo and sporadic laughs

A nonetheless from ‘The Decameron’

Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron featured prominently in my Historical past of English Literature course. The 14^th century traditional was thought of inspiration for the varied greats of English writing together with Shelley and Shakespeare. The Decameron was a part of examine, identical to the mild knight pricking on the plain in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene.

There didn’t appear something even vaguely adaptable in The Decameron, a group of hundred tales instructed by seven ladies and three males hiding out in a rustic villa exterior Florence hoping to attend out the plague that was sweeping over Europe. The plague reduce a swath of destruction by way of the medieval world, bringing about nice financial, social and non secular change, which makes the drawing of parallels between the pandemic from 1346 to 1353 to the one in 2020 depressingly simple.

And so we have now Netflix’s The Decameron, which loosely follows Boccaccio’s work, shortly turning into its personal beast. It’s 1348 and persons are dropping useless like flies, in Florence as elsewhere, of bubonic plague. A nobleman, Eduardo (John Hannah), is at dying’s door. Whereas his daughter, Filomena (Jessica Plummer), is just not very sympathetic, her maid, Licisca (Tanya Reynolds, good), worries about Eduardo and tries all types of weird cures to make him properly.

When an invite to attend out the plague within the nation at Villa Santa comes, Filomena sees it as an escape and convinces Licisca that it’s their most suitable choice, particularly after Eduardo’s dying. The visitors at Villa Santa embrace tone-deaf Pampinea (Zosia Mamet), her enabler maid, Misia (Saoirse-Monica Jackson), a hypochondriac nobleman, Tindaro (Douggie McMeekin), his physician, Dioneo (Amar Chadha-Patel), wily Panfilo (Karan Gill) and his pious spouse Neifile (Lou Gala). Stratilia (Leila Farzad), the prepare dinner, and the steward, Sirisco (Tony Hale), are run ragged taking care of the nobles and their ridiculous calls for.

Everybody has their very own agenda. An previous maid at 28, Pampinea sees her betrothal to Leonardo, the proprietor of Villa Santa, as her validation. Sadly, with Leonardo unusually absent, she has to work out other ways of maintaining her standing. Misia, although fiercely loyal to Pampinea, suffers from her uncaring methods. Neifile is affected by lust for all her piety whereas Panfilo has his secrets and techniques. There are mercenaries, depraved clergymen, scammers and thieves, all seeking to relieve Villa Santa of its riches.  

A nonetheless from ‘The Decameron’

The noblemen aren’t so noble and greater than prepared to chop the opposite’s throat for revenue. At completely different factors of time, folks attempt to take possession of Villa Santa with out a lot success. There’s a correct bust-up on the finish with piles of useless our bodies, however there’s hope as properly. The rock soundtrack together with music by Depeche Mode, 9 Inch Nails, Duran Duran and The Zombies is enjoyable. Nonetheless, anachronistic interval items with trendy language, steamy intercourse and excessive violence aren’t such a startling factor anymore and so subversions have to be backed by strong content material.

Whereas The Decameron has the intercourse, language and gore, it doesn’t have the requisite smarts to hold it off. And so you’re left with a mildly amusing present, which doesn’t do the gifted forged any favours. Marvel what interval piece content material creators will flip their acquisitive beady eyes on subsequent — Dante’s Divine Comedy maybe?

The Decameron is streaming on Netflix