Hotel Costiera, review of the series with Jesse Williams

Hotel Costiera is the new series set in the splendid Positano, starring Jesse Williams as Daniel De Luca. Here's our review.

Hotel Costiera: the plot of the series with Jesse Williams

Daniel De Luca (Jesse Williams) is a former marine of Italian origin. He returns to his homeland to work as a problem solver in a luxury hotel in Positano.

His daily life is made up of romantic adventures, small mysteries to solve, and his biggest mission: to find his boss's daughter, who has been missing for months.

Tourist cinema in Italy: from its origins to today

The "tourist cinema" genre in Italy has marked the last sixty years of films in our country, bringing us both positive and negative aspects.

We can say that cinematic language is also, to all intents and purposes, an emanation of so-called "soft power," and if this approach has been used by Hollywood over the years, no less has happened in our country.

Just think of the Trevi Fountain in Fellini's La Dolce Vita, the emblematic opening (complete with the Neapolitan seafront) in De Sica's Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, or most recently Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty (coincidentally the last Italian film to have made its mark at the temple of world cinema: the Oscars).

But the world outside Italy has also very often chosen to make films in our country, greatly influencing our narrative (from Roman Holiday to A Room with a View, the repertoire is endless).

Hotel Costiera, an international production between Positano and the Amalfi Coast

With Hotel Costiera, a further step is taken: a large international production, co-directed by two directors (Adam Bernstein and Giacomo Martelli) and a mixed Italian-Anglo-Saxon cast.

At the center of it all is Jesse Williams' character: Daniel De Luca, son of a South Carolina mother and a Neapolitan father. After years of service in the Marines, he chose to live on the Amalfi Coast, working as a factotum in one of the most luxurious hotels in the world: Hotel Costiera.

Daniel has to solve everything from small problems (finding the wealthy client Elettra Lamborghini's missing dog) to solving real mysteries, one per episode.

At the heart of the story, however, is the greatest mystery: will Daniel succeed in finding the missing daughter of his employer, hotelier Augusto (played by Tommaso Ragno)?

Each episode will be another piece of the puzzle, leading to an unexpected ending and solution.

The cast of Hotel Costiera: Italian and international actors

Jesse Williams is the absolute protagonist and interacts with Italian actors such as the aforementioned Ragno, Maria Chiara Giannetta (Augusto's daughter and hotel manager of the Costiera), Pierpaolo Spollon, Antonio Gerardi, and Amanda Campana.

Hotel Costiera, review: pros and cons of the series

The series is clearly an entertainment work, almost a rollercoaster between more and less convincing episodes.

But at the same time, it represents a great responsibility: that of showing one of Italy's tourist excellences (the Amalfi Coast) not just as a postcard landscape.

But also as a place of conflicts, grim events, and above all, as a genuinely lived place.

By its people, its workers, its historic families.

Capable of going even beyond the stories of the "vitelloni" of Positano brought to the big screen by Vittorio Caprioli and his Leoni al sole in 1961.

The six episodes of Hotel Costiera will debut on September 24, 2025, exclusively on Prime Video.