Hotel Portofino (2022)

Watchseries; Really enjoyed the show. Cast were great and if you love the classic British dramas with beautiful settings, this is definitely the series for you.

In a year full of COVID and non vacations, it's fantastic to be transported back to 1920s Italy and emerge ourselves in a wonderful story.

Really enjoyed the show. Cast were great and if you love the classic British dramas with beautiful settings, this is definitely the series for you.

In a year full of COVID and non vacations, it's fantastic to be transported back to 1920s Italy and emerge ourselves in a wonderful story.

Hotel Portofino watchseries. If a high school theater ensemble made a Riviera rehash of "Downton Abbey", with a reverential scent of Jane Austen on everything, this is probably very close to what the finished product would look like.

It's not completely bad, but everything feels slightly campy and counterfeit all the time. The "bad guys" are almost all cartoonishly shady, bordering on old-school mustache-twirling villains - even the women, constantly displeased and scheming.

And the many anachronisms surely don't help either. Back in the 1920's, Italians didn't speak English: it was not taught in school, it was not heard on the radio and was not read anywhere. So it's utterly lazy writing to have them magically understand the show's English characters. Even worse, this was when religion and fascism ruled unopposed: the show's young black woman wouldn't have been allowed to sashay around like she owned Portofino. In reality, she would've been arrested, or even publicly beaten by Mussolini's Black Shirts. Simply put, several of the characters don't make much sense.

The house, landscape and costumes steal the show at times. The cast is great but can be overshadowed by how beautiful each scene is set.

The story is goodfwntle fayre and would be perfect Sunday night viewing. The woke storylines are a bit manufactured to meet production quotas but not too off-putting.

Enjoyed watching Hotel Portofino. Beautiful setting and when relaxing down having time to oneself with a lovely cup of tea this is just right to watch.

A period piece including the frightful politics of that day. Portofino shines and brings back many personal memories. Great character developments, variety of personas. Rich and entertaining. With all these dreary crime-dramas being churned out, like Ozark and Billions, this gorgeous film is a great escape for us today.

The Durrells meets Downton (but not quite on a par with either of those just yet) in this new Britbox series following a British family who open the Hotel Portofino on the Italian Riviera in the 1920's, starring Natascha McElhone.

It's very watchable, helped by the beautiful setting with Croatia doubling for Italy. Production values were OK and the large cast were good, everyone seemed to be 'rather attractive'. Its definitely a traditional period show pitched at an older audience but there's no harm in that, though critics will probably disagree.

I rather liked it. The opening episode had an awful lot of characters to introduce and consequently was a bit too slow moving but the pace picked up as the series developed and there were some interesting plots and themes.

Not an instant classic, but as a light drama in a beautiful setting it does what is says on the tin. A diverting watch for cold Winter evenings.