The Ewan McGregor Adaptation of an Omnipresent Bestseller Gets a Trailer

I have read Amor Towles’ The Lincoln Highway and found it to be a fine novel, indeed, although I have resisted — despite the many, many recommendations made to me by algorithm — Towles’ more popular novel, The Gentleman in Moscow. I cannot say why I have resisted, except that the title always recalls in my mind Sting’s “Englishman in New York” and I do not care for that song.

With Ewan McGregor’s adaptation on its way to Paramount+ later this month, I may finally rectify that situation. McGregor plays Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, a Russian aristocrat who spends decades banished to an attic hotel room after the Russian Revolution after being sentenced to house arrest by a Bolshevik tribunal. The series, anyway, appears to have some comedic elements (which I did not expect based on my ignorance of the novel). Or it could just be that McGregor’s mustache looks funny. McGregor stars alongside his wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

The Gentleman of Moscow streams on Paramount+ on March 29th.