---
title: The Night Manager
type: Television
status: Finished
genre:
  - Drama
  - Thriller
year: 2016
rating: 6
date: 2023-05-07
image: nm.jpeg
tags:
  - television
colorSortKey: [0, 125, 7]
---
 We watched this off of the heels of another (albeit more oblique) homage to le Carré, [[The Ipcress File]], and it's remarkable where this succeeds and where this fails in comparison. I do not think that neither Hiddleston nor Laurie did a _terrific_ job in their respective roles, but they were servicable (and certainly the budget — which must have been astronomical for 2016 BBC standards — was put to good use).

But the sacrifices made to le Carré's original plot in order to make this a little bit more _television-y_ are felt, especially in the final two episodes. Hiddleston's character acts in a way that is patently absurd, and Laurie's refusal to just kill him outright is equally daft. The necessity of the showrunners to tie everything up in a neat bow is... so very American, and feels like a betrayal of the source material.

But!

Sometimes a show can be redeemed by a single scene, and here is what I will remember about _The Night Manager_: four minutes of Laurie gleefully detonating bombs and dispersing napalm, streaks of red and orange across a pitch black sky. Tremendously good cinema, beautiful and chilling in equal parts.