Hostage is a political drama in which Suranne Jones plays the British Prime Minister and Julie Delpy plays the President of France. I don’t know about you, but I’m already sold on this series knowing only that.
Hostage is set in an England where Abigail Dalton (Suranne Jones) was elected because she promised to fix the National Health Service. She did it by taking money from the military budget. After eight months in office, she hasn’t done what she promised. In fact, pharmacy shelves were empty and people were suffering for lack of medicines and drugs.
And the military was not happy either.
Abigail planned to make a deal with French President Vivienne Toussaint (Julie Delpy) to get a reliable supply of medications brought into the country. Vivienne had her own agenda and demands in exchange for helping England with their supply problems.
As they get going with negotiations, Abigail’s husband Alex (Ashley Thomas), a doctor working in French Guiana, is captured along with several other doctors. The people holding him wanted Abigail to resign as PM. England doesn’t give in to the demands of terrorists, and Abigail refused to step down.
Abigail and Alex have a daughter, Sylvie (Isobel Akuwudike). She doesn’t care about the needs of England, she just wants her Dad back.
Kofi (Lucian Msamati) is Abigail’s chief advisor. She doesn’t always follow his advice. Acting on her own without informing her cabinet about what is happening Abigail makes a deal with Vivienne to send French soldiers into French Guiana to save the doctors. When they are but minutes away, Vivienne gets a video message that makes her abort the mission.
There are five episodes in this limited series, and they go by pretty fast as the situation changes constantly for both Abigail, Vivienne, and the hostages.
There are many other significant characters in the ongoing story. Vivienne’s stepson Matheo (Corey Mylchreest) and his girlfriend Saskia (Sophie Robertson) are crucial. The British General Livingston (Mark Lewis Jones) is as well. Abigail’s ill father (James Cosmo) has opinions about things. An ex-military character played by Martin McCann seems to be in charge of the terrorists and the demands for Abigail to resign, but other people look suspicious, too.
There’s a lot going on. When it looks like they’ve found a way out of all the problems, things change and a new solution has to be devised. The suspense held up, even though the plot felt clichéd and soapy at times.
I thought Suranne Jones and Julie Delpy were both fabulous, as was the always wonderful Lucian Msamati. Isabelle Sieb and Amy Neil directed all the episodes.
The entire Hostage series is streaming now on Netflix.
Leave a Reply