Hollywood: Review

You know something's wrong when a trailer makes you feel more emotions than seven hours of TV.

I can't decide if this is because the trailer was especially good and the show was mediocre or if the show itself was terrible and the trailer editor is some kind of wizard because honestly I expected a lot more from this one.

Ryan Murphy seems to be my crux at the moment. I cannot pin down how I feel about his work. Glee is a super fun show, do I think it's good? No... no I do not. The same goes for Murphy's last Netflix outing The Politician which I watched all the way through and got a lot of enjoyment out of while at the same time questioning its very existence. The only series of his I would give a bonafide stamp of approval to is Pose.

The best way I could describe Murphy's work is it's kind of like a magazine. It's all very glossy, everyone in it is very attractive looking and appart from the occasional good article, it's all pretty shallow... except for Pose... Pose is great...

His work is always nice to look at, the stories are "good enough" to keep me watching but never demand much emotional investment (obviously except for Pose. I'll just assume you'll know I'm not talking about Pose from now on)

Hollywood is the second series made by Murphy as part of his $300 million, 5 year deal with Netflix and while it seems like a pretty harmless magazine mini-series, I have some serious problems with it.

1. What was good

Before I go off on one about what I really didn't like in this series I'm going to talk about its merits. Whether or not you like Murphy's style you cannot deny he's good at it. This show is practically liquid cool. It's so slick I felt like I was watching a commercial for James Bond inspired body sprays most of the time and for a show about the glitz and glam of 50's Hollywood, that works.

The show is set after the second world war where a bold group of newcomers aim to change the Hollywood scene. A black, gay writer, a black actress, a gay wannabe movie star, a war veteran and a female, middle aged, Jewish studio head are all brought together by chance to make a film that would change the industry forever.

The idea of the series is to create an alternate history almost like a "What if" scenario. What would happen if a group of minorities had gotten their big break during the 50's? What kind of hoops would they have had to go through back then to make that happen?

The concept is an intriguing one and throughout the show we get some really great performances from Patti LuPone, Joe Mantello, Michelle Krusiec and Dylan McDermott who all steal any scene they're in from their younger co-stars.

A standout performance was Jim Parsons as slimey, manipulating talent agent Henry Wilson based on a real person. His sinister, power hungry, disgusting yet tragic performance almost felt like it belonged in a different show that explored the seedy underbelly of Hollywood the way I thought this show was going to.

It's unfortunate for the new talent that they had to compete with such great performances because the reality is that they just can't. When David Cornsweet gets a scene opposite Jim Parsons they may as well have been in two different shows cut together. The only time I ever felt emotionally attached to a character were a few scenes where closeted producer Dick Samuels has to kindly rebuff the advances of his dear friend and work colleague Ellen before breaking down into tears outside her house.

Darren Criss opposite Michelle Krusiec really makes him look like a bit of a dud which is surprising seeming as I enjoyed his performance way more than than David Cornsweet's. Although she only makes a few appearances, Queen Latifah is also a complete scenery chewer and the one monologue she gets is definitely the highlight of the series.

Jeremy Pope tries his best as writer Archie, but his emotions never seem authentic and I'm not sure if this is down to a lack of direction or him not being given enough opposition in the script for his struggle to ring true.

2. The Script

I imagine this series was written quickly. I don't know for sure. That's just the impression I get because it's missing one massive element that any series worth its salt should have.

Conflict.

There are certainly obstacles in the way of our main protagonists; having to become a male prostitute to support their family, being disregarded because of their race, having to be secretive about their sexuality... all of which should create tension but the show never spends enough time on a problem for it ever to be a big issue. I never doubted for one second that everything would turn out fine in the end.

In the last couple of episodes the huge hurdles you thought these characters would have to jump over to get their film made are quite easily walked through with very little consequences. This is why Archie's emotional speech feels so empty. It must be devastating to have your name removed from a script you wrote because of your race, that's horrific, but something tells me that in the next ten minutes something will have happened that reverses this and nothing will have changed. So what's the point? I didn't understand what the show was trying to say. Systemic racism in the film industry will fix itself? I don't think so!

I know the whole point is that Hollywood is an idealistic fantasy but it doesn't sit well with me when racism, sexism and homophobia are made out to be less than the barriers that they were, and still are and the characters don't have to do anything active to fight against it. I feel like it diminishes the efforts of the people who were the trailblazers that started to bring about change and don't have an oscar to prove it.

I thought the show was building to something when the actors and director get targeted by the KKK. A burning cross is left outside the directors window and the next day there are riots outside the studio. But again, a miracle solution is found, it doesn't impact the release of the film and it becomes a huge success.

Henry Wilson is given an arc from a sexually abusive talent manager to a man desperate to change his ways but even that feels rushed. I know we're not meant to forgive his character but the fact that he felt the most sincere out of all of them made me feel kind of icky.

3. Jack

So, the fact that this idealistic version of Hollywood still takes its main point of view from a straight, white supermodel really grates on me.

At first I didn't mind it. A veteran soldier who has dreams of being a Hollywood star but hasn't got enough money to support his wife turning to prostitution to make ends meet... it's actually got good legs. It would be interesting to see this man who is the very vision of American idealism get dragged deeper and deeper into the seedy underbelly of an industry that thrives on sexual favours, mafia links and blackmail while trying to stay true to himself and his family. From the first episode I honestly thought that was where this was going and the characters would have to play it smart to work their way up. Manipulate the manipulators and Jack would be caught in the middle of it, wanting to get into Hollywood but scared of what he might have to do to get there.

If the show had taken this route it would have been great. Instead Jack gets paired with a number of rich, beautiful and influential clients and by the end of episode 2 he's in a place where he can leave sex work behind him and become a floating piece of bread amongst an ensemble of more interesting characters he's robbed time from. The only thing that made him remotely interesting was the strained dynamic with his wife who he was staying with out of duty to his unborn children, even though he knows he doesn't love her. Wanting to support her is his only motive and even that is given a really easy way out. She tells him she's fallen in love with someone else and the children aren't his... so now he has no responsibility to anyone... convenient...

The fact is if this series had picked any of its other characters to be the main focus it probably would have been a hell of a lot more interesting and would have given the writers a reason to have real conflict in the foreground instead of lots of little easily resolved conflicts in the background. Jack Castello is definitely a background character otherwise this new Hollywood image looks a lot like the old one.

4. Conclusion

As much as this show frustrates me I think it was made with good intentions. It tried to do something original in a very unoriginal way and I think that is where it stumbles. It would be lovely to re-write the Hollywood story but we know too much about how it actually was for us to accept this sugarcoated version of events. While it occasionally dips its toe in something darker most of the time we're stuck at surface level mellow drama with little to make us route for the characters we should desperately want to see succeed.

Watching Hollywood feels like a very disappointing log flume ride where we go up the incline only to fall a meter on the other end.

I'm sure a lot of people loved this show, but for me more time and consideration was needed to make the concept work.

4/10