House of Guinness Review
Director: Tom Shankland and Mounia Akl
Date Created: 2025-09-26 12:26
1.5
House of Guinness Review: Created by Steven Knight, the very same mind that produced Peaky Blinders. Featuring Anthony Boyle, Louis Partridge, Emily Fairn, Fionn O’Shea, James Norton, Niamh McCormack and others, the series tries hard to create an epic historical drama. Spread across eight parts, the series traces the Guinness dynasty after the death of their founding father, Sir Benjamin Guinness. This could’ve been an interesting tale of dynasty, betrayal, and ambition. In reality, however, the series does nothing but bore you, and by the end of it, I felt fatigued rather than entertained.
House of Guinness Review
Since this is from Steven Knight, comparisons with Peaky Blinders will be unavoidable. But while Peaky Blinders survived on rough-hewn storytelling and charismatic characters, Netflix’s House of Guinness is a poor substitute. The drama leaps between Dublin and New York, threatening to marry family politicking with Irish history, but passion and fire are replaced by plodding rhythm and characters who feel detached.
My problem was basic: I did not care about these characters. Their philandering wives’ quarrels, their politicking, their personal issues, none of that was able to hook me. I was expecting something gritty, something unexpected, something memorable. But I received instead half-hearted arguments and uneventful conclusions.
This is such a period drama that succeeds or fails on the basis of its characters, and that’s precisely where the show disappoints. Arthur, Edward, Anne, and Ben, the Guinness siblings, are thought of as if they sound like placeholders but not living and breathing characters. They quarrel, of course, they manipulate, of course, they indulge, of course, they fantasise, but nothing seems heavy about their storylines.
Start with the youngest brother. His manic drinking and irresponsible actions should have bred multiple levels of angst and tension, but rather than that, they became a refrain of same ol’ same ol’ over and over. Bad enough, but the woman chases after him and barely gets any character development of their own; their relationship sounds like padding. Rather than create drama, their relationship instead adds a depressive tint to the show.
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Well, I won’t lie that there isn’t anything good about the House of Guinness Series. Costumes are beautiful, set designs are realistic, and the use of Irish music—folk songs to modern rock—is extremely flavorful. If you only looked at its surface, then yes, the show certainly has that high-gloss sheen. At times, I caught myself thinking, “This must be good.”
But the style will not do the trick, however, if the actual narrative itself is dead. Cinematography may be fastidious, but if the scenes themselves are sluggish and uneventful, then the pictures are wasted. Just like providing a beautiful dish that does not come with a pleasant flavour — nice to look at, but disappointing once you try it.
The series also goes out of its way to integrate Irish politics, famine, and revolutionaries like the Fenians. Blending education content, the series does not integrate identification at an emotional level. One learns of such but does not experience them vicariously through such characters, something that the series never does accomplish. Instead of integrating the history organically with personal narratives, the series feels like a lesson that interrupts the drama.
The cast does its best. I will not deny that the accents, mannerisms, and everything natural about the performances are good. Anthony Boyle and James Norton do seem very good in their roles. But good acting will not overcome bad writing. No matter the cast’s best efforts at developing their characters, they will not be able to bring them across as interesting if the script does very little for them.
This was frustrating me the most. You could feel the hard work that goes into acting, but as an observer, you feel cold. I did not feel like I connected with them; I was actually checking out the minutes remaining per episode.
By the later seasons I had gotten to, I only continued out of obligation rather than enjoyment. What could’ve been an intense family drama was a slow, plodding show with lifeless plotting. Occasionally recurring fights and conflicts do become present, but they feel forced rather than naturally occurring phenomena, and the timing is also too unpredictable to leave any lasting effects.
The largest problem here is that Netflix’s House of Guinness confuses a serious atmosphere with good drama. Just because you have something that’s heavy and historic doesn’t necessarily mean viewers will immediately connect. When you have nothing interesting going on with your characters and good conflicts, everything is boring and forgetful.
Netflix House of Guinness Review: Summing Up
In short, the House of Guinness is a show that boasts majesty but offers boredom. In spite of good costumes, good performances, and trendy camera work, nothing seems to help that its narratives are one-dimensional and its characters are unanimated. It’s slow-paced, slow-moving, and at the end of the day, wasted potential. If you are very interested in Guinness family history, then I’m not very certain that there’s any point wasting eight hours with this series.
