Review of The Buccaneers, Apple TV+

Abstract

Abstract On 8 November 2023, Apple premiered an adaptation of The Buccaneers, created by Katherine Jakeways. The series revives the nineteenth century using lush production and costume design to comment anew on class division, race relations, and, above all, gender imbalances. Inevitably compared to Netflix’s smash Regency romance, Bridgerton, the series is more like Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, for it incorporates deliberately anachronistic music and contemporary speech to emphasize that the romantic and familial struggles of its characters resemble those of contemporary women. While it alters and embellishes Wharton’s original narrative, it retains the novel’s insistent critique of social rigidity and, surprisingly, introduces welcome nuance. In its own way, it follows Wharton in imagining a more modern existence of female freedom and solidarity.