The spicy romance genre has really caught fire in the cinema in recent years with representatives such as After Passion or Beautiful Disaster and can also be found again and again as an element in series such as Bridgerton or Elite. Mona Kasten’s bestselling novel series Save Me * hit exactly this mark on the German market in 2018 and was included Maxton Hall – The World Between Us now adapted for Amazon Prime Video as an elaborate series.
With How to sell Drugs online (Fast) star Damian Hardung and Bibi and Tina actress Harriet Herbig-Matten in the lead roles, the boarding school drama spins a forbidden romance between a rich bad boy and a model student from a poorer background. Even if we do this Enemies to Lovers– If you’ve already seen the premise well enough, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s doomed to failure – after all, you can’t completely reinvent the wheel. But then the whole thing has to boast an original or at least rousing production. But unfortunately that is not the case at Maxton Hall.
New German series on Amazon Prime: That’s what Maxton Hall is about
In order to make her big dream of studying at Oxford University come true, the shy Ruby Bell (Harriet Herbig-Matten) decides to make her next scholarship year at the elite boarding school Maxton Hall as calm and determined as possible. But her plan is turned upside down when she suddenly… Part of a secret which affects the family of the school’s most popular guy, James Beauford (Damian Hardung). From then on, he pulls out all the stops to protect his wealthy and highly respected family from a scandal and begins to blackmail Ruby.
Watch the trailer for Maxton Hall – The World Between Us here:
Maxton Hall: The World Between Us – S01 Trailer (German) HD
What started out as mutual dislike suddenly turns into something different, as fate brings Ruby and James together more and more often unexpected sides get to know your counterpart. Can they leave behind the world around them with its prejudices and rules that keeps trying to tear them apart?
Maxton Hall on Amazon Prime: Enemys to Lovers in series has rarely been so unimaginative
When the opening sequence of Maxton Hall begins and in the first image we see a barely covered, half-naked Damian Hardung lying on the bed next to his one-night stand, showing off his toned upper body, it immediately conveys to us where we are we find ourselves here: in a series that predominantly for a certain target audience to languish was developed. The opulent backdrop of Marienburg Castle in Lower Saxony, which is supposed to represent the eponymous British elite boarding school, also fits in with this superficial glamor, which unfortunately cannot really deliver on the inside what it promises on the outside.
Behind the thick stone walls there are all sorts of tired tropes, stereotypical characters that we already know from numerous other stories, and scenes that are almost ridiculously close seem copied from other films. This includes the argument between Ruby and James in the classroom, which is very reminiscent of a scene from After Passion in which – of course – Pride and Prejudice is discussed. This Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy-like story unfolds in Maxton Hall in more profound episodes than in some other genre relatives such as After Passion. However, to achieve the sophistication of Bridgerton or even an Austen work, a fake British palace or a Victorian prom is not enough.
Amazon
Harriet Herbig-Matten and Damian Hardung at Maxton Hall
They miss the fact that German actors play British students at a British boarding school in front of a German backdrop and address each other with British names Plastic packaging unfortunately another forced high-gloss polish. What may work on paper in Mona Kasten’s novel often doesn’t sound quite as exciting when spoken out loud. It might have worked better here to set the series entirely in a German setting and let Marienburg Castle be, well, Marienburg Castle, instead of pretending to have an English attitude that isn’t there.
Winning an international audience through this mix hasn’t worked particularly well for Amazon Prime Video with the novel adaptation Silver and the Book of Dreams, which started in December last year. It remains to be seen how Maxton Hall performs on the streamer and whether we will see more seasons here. Finally there would be with Save You and Save Us two more continuing novels from Mona Kasten’s Maxton Hall series. However, apart from die-hard fans, probably no one would really miss them.
Maxton Hall Season 1 consists of six episodes. The first 3 episodes were the basis for this series review.
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