*½ out of ****
At this point, what on earth can you say about Ryan Murphy? His output includes some of the worst television I’ve ever seen (Glee), some interesting failures (Scream Queens), and some remarkable work as well (Nip/Tuck, The Normal Heart, and the first season of American Crime Story). All, excepting The Normal Heart (a beautiful, gripping adaptation of Larry Kramer’s landmark play), are salacious, transgressive, exploitative, and vulgar—sometimes all at once.
With Dahmer-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, he and co-creator Ian Brennan fashioned something unique: a factual, well-made miniseries that I wouldn’t ever want to watch again and which I think should not have been made. At this point, one must wonder why Murphy is attracted to these subject matters. He feeds a sick public sick material that ends up not revealing anything about human nature, but instead trots out grotesquerie and the freaks we’ve come to (for some reason) adore in the age of True Crime podcasts, docuseries, and YouTube videos.
With the second installment of Monster (Murphy pioneered the modern anthology series with American Horror Story), he has turned to Lyle and Erik Menendez, the brothers who are in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering their parents in cold blood in the late 1980s. I have watched the entire thing and I cannot understand its raison d’être or its point-of-view.
Somehow, with the Dahmer series (which should have been a movie focusing solely on Niecy Nash’s character’s perspective), a brilliant patchwork was created from multiple writers and multiple directors. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story suffers from the same revolving door of behind-the-scenes staff. There is absolutely no clear through-line, no distinct interpretation, no reason for the audience to continue from episode to episode and, ultimately, no reason to watch it except out of sociological interest.
It has been so long since the Menendez trials, which were eventually overshadowed by the O. J. case (giving us one very clever scene late in the series), one wonders why go back to this material at all. There is no one to like, no one to root for, no one to learn from. With Dahmer, somehow, we got the full picture of one of the most fascinating serial killers of the 20th century and even came the closest we could to an understanding of him. With Lyle and Erik, two spoiled, rich, Bel-Air kids, we find no reason to even revisit them.
The back-and-forth plot shows the many varied narratives given in the trial—focusing on the alleged sexual abuse of the boys by José Menendez (Javier Bardem). We begin with the soft-spoken Erik (Cooper Koch) feeling guilty and end with the sense he was just as culpable as Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez), who is portrayed throughout as a raging sociopath. We have endless scenes with their attorney Leslie Abramson (Ari Gaynor) defending the indefensible. It’s like an extended episode of Forensic Files on coke and with no resolution.
It is the very sloppily constructed arc of the miniseries that is most to blame. The show’s strongest episodes are directed by Carl Franklin and written by Brennan in collaboration either with Murphy or David McMillan. But with the fifth episode, “The Hurt Man,” which has been the most highly praised (God knows why), we have one single shot—Abramson’s back turned to us as Erik recites his “story” (which we have already heard before) played by an emotionless Koch. After that, the show never really recovers and then, you remember it wasn’t that good to start with.
Comparisons could be made to the rich, jaded characters in the early novels of Bret Easton Ellis, such as Less Than Zero. They dine at the fanciest restaurants, have zero personality, and commit unspeakable crimes all in a dull monotone. This somehow works on the page, but when translated to the dramatic medium, falls flat. The two leads are playing utterly obnoxious (not to mention cold-blooded) human beings. Why would we want to suffer through nine episodes with them? And why nine? Was there even enough material to stretch this out into a miniseries in the first place?
The most controversial aspect of the show has been the insinuation that Lyle and Erik were in an incestuous relationship with each other. From every viewpoint, this seems ridiculous, and the father’s sexual abuse was never proven despite testimonies for and against. We leave the series thinking that José and “Kitty” (a wasted Chloë Sevigny) are actually pretty good people despite some evidence to the contrary—victims of California life in the ‘80s with its promiscuous sex, ever-flowing booze, and little lines of white powder on glass tabletops. But, given all that has come before, I don’t know what to believe about any of the characters. Worse, I could care less.
The series’ one saving grace is a magnificent performance by Nathan Lane playing the journalist Dominick Dunne. How he makes high art out of a series of repetitive scenes is beyond me. Lane is a genius. More and more, Murphy is not. He is simply a voyeur, creating show upon show of cameras panning up and down gorgeous bodies—that is, when they’re not being eviscerated.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
Netflix
Javier Bardem as José Menendez
Chloë Sevigny as Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez
Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez
Nicholas Alexander Chavez as Lyle Menendez
Ari Gaynor as Leslie Abramson
Nathan Lane as Dominick Dunne
Vicki Lawrence as Leigh
Created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan
Directed by Carl Franklin, Paris Barclay, Michael Uppendahl, Max Winkler, and Ian Brennan
Produced by Lou Eyrich, Todd Kubrak, Todd Nenninger, Reilly Smith, Peggy Tachdjian, and Danielle Wang
Written by Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, David McMillan, Reilly Smith, and Todd Kubrak
Music by Julia and Thomas Newman
Photographed by Jason McCormick and Barry Baz Idoine
Edited by Franzis Muller, Julia Franklin, Franklin Peterson, Peggy Tachdjian, and Danielle Wang
Opmerkingen