Where Is HBO’s ‘The Regime’ Supposed to Take Place?
HBO‘s The Regime takes place in an unnamed European country. But do context clues from the trailer, series descriptions, and reviews give a glimpse into where the show is meant to be based?
The Regime is a darkly comedic six-episode series telling the story of life within the walls of a modern authoritarian regime as it begins to unravel. After not leaving the palace for quite some time, Chancellor Elena Vernham (Kate Winslet) has grown increasingly paranoid and unstable when she turns to a volatile soldier, Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts), as an unlikely confidant. As Zubak’s influence over the chancellor continues to grow, Elena’s attempts to expand her power eventually result in both the palace and the country fracturing around her.
The only specific location the series provides is Middle Europe. There are a variety of accents among the people in Elena’s palace that she refuses to leave, both in the Vernham family and their government underlings, in the clips released so far. Winslet speaks with a classic British accent (that comes with several vocal quirks on top of it, like speaking out of the side of her mouth on occasion), and there are a handful of different British accents throughout (Andrea Riseborough‘s is closer to Cockney than it is to the BBC English accent). But Herbert, Elena’s righthand man, sounds like he’s speaking with a Russian accent.
Then there’s the fashion. The trailers have shown glimpses of the local attire, which looks to be inspired by traditional German and Austrian garb, complete with its skirts, aprons, floral patterns, and braided hair on top of heads. There are more brutalist fashion choices among the regime’s government that will remind you of the Gilead fashion in The Handmaid’s Tale (with its teals and dark hues, plus the occasional reds, the colors also feel similar to the more dystopian regime of the Hulu series). The palace guards are also wearing red jackets that resemble the uniforms worn by London’s “Beefeater” guards.
Where The Regime was filmed also gives hints at its intended location, although its precise location and country name are clearly not the point of this series. For Elena’s palace, the series was filmed at the Liechtenstein Garden Palace – Hercules Hall in Vienna, Austria. You’ll see many of the palace’s interiors throughout the limited series.
It feels like Austria is most likely country for this series, but the location really doesn’t seem to matter. All that matters is that it’s located in Europe and Winslet’s Elena is trying to prove her little regime can go up to bat with the world’s superpowers.
The Regime‘s country of origin is intentionally vague, but the country is made easier to understand through the careful selection of references to other countries all across Europe. As for Elena herself, she runs a cult of personality. She’s ridiculous and wacky, but she also makes cutthroat decisions, making her feel similar at times to the likes of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
The Regime, Series Premiere, Sunday, March 3, 9/8c, HBO
