TV Review: Hollywood from creator Ryan Murphy

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Plot: Follows a group of aspiring actors and filmmakers in post-World War II Hollywood as they try to make it in Tinseltown — no matter the cost. Each character offers a unique glimpse behind the gilded curtain of Hollywood's Golden Age, spotlighting the unfair systems and biases across race, gender and sexuality that continue to this day.

Review: Ryan Murphy's second series for Netflix is at once familiar for fans of the American Horror Story creator and unique. With a look reminiscent of Murphy's FX series Feud about the rivalry between Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon) and Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange), Hollywood looks back at the Golden Age of filmmaking but with Murphy's decidedly modern perspective. Showing us a cast of characters looking to make it on the big screen, Hollywood presents a focus on minorities and how they struggled to become famous. The series looks good and the cast are all very nice to look at, but something about Hollywood just feels superficial. For an event series, this is certainly an involving and interesting story, but the shock value that Ryan Murphy productions had on basic cable a decade ago feel quaint on a platform without the same restrictions.

Early Hollywood history is replete with intriguing stories about what was never on screen but happening behind closed doors. Movies ranging from THE PLAYER to WAG THE DOG and more have shown the seedier side of what movie executives and agents did to actors and filmmakers as they strove to fulfill their dreams. In the wake of the #MeToo movement and the conviction of Harvey Weinstein, this story is as timely as ever but it is a hard balance between making this an aspirational story versus a cautionary tale. There are several times where Hollywood clicks and gives us something truly engaging but there are others where it falls into Ryan Murphy's tried and true formula which makes it feel like a season of Glee set in the 1940s.

Hollywood follows a true ensemble cast of characters who all center around the production of the film PEG at Ace Studios. The characters are a mix of historical characters like Anna May Wong (Michelle Krusiec), Vivien Leigh (Katie McGuinness), Eleanor Roosevelt (Harriet Harris) and Hattie McDaniel (Queen Latifah) amonst many other recognizable names from the era along with a young cast of fictional actors and filmmakers. While Samara Weaving. Laura Harrier, Jake Picking, and David Corenswet vie for the lead role in the film from African American screenwriter Archie Coleman (Jeremy Pope) and half-Asian director Raymond Ainsley (Darren Criss), we see them intersect with the studio powerhouses including studio heads played by Rob Reiner and Patti LuPone as well as agent Henry Wilson (Jim Parsons). There are also great appearances by Holland Taylor, Dylan McDermott, and Mira Sorvino amongst many. 

The blending of truth and fiction can often come at a price. Jim Parsons plays Wilson as a combination of villain and sympathetic while Jake Picking portrays Rock Hudson as an awful actor coasting on his good looks. David Corenswet, who starred in Murphy's THE POLITICIAN, was rumored as a potential successor to Henry Cavill as Superman and shows he has the matineee idol looks as well as some acting chop to be a contender. All of these actors truly inhabit their roles, but the problem with this series is that it goes from pulpy fun in one scene to overlu melodramatic in the next. Had this been played as a straight drama or comedy it may have worked better, but the tone makes it hard to laugh or take this show too seriously.

In fact, my biggest problem is that this series tackles some important issues in Hollywood and doesn't give them their due. In one scene, Henry Wilson is a sexual predator who preys on his clients and the next he is shown as an advocate and someone to root for. It could be said that Ryan Murphy's series is showing that not everyone is wholly good or bad but it becomes difficult to root for characters who do awful things. Samara Weaving, a breakout from her turn in last year's READY OR NOT, starts out seeming like a villain before turning into a relatable character. The only truly good person in this cast is Laura Harrier's Camille Washington, a true movie star in the making. Her struggle comes from the color of her skin which makes her tale a familiar one for countless actors through history.

Ryan Murphy's Hollywood has a very intriguing story behind it but it ultimately fails to take advantage of what it is trying to say. While American Crime Story has shown us the other side of heinous crimes in recent American history, it did so with a serious and pitch perfect tone. Hollywood is far too pulpy and similar to the style of recent seasons of American Horror Story to really take advantage of bringing an untold chapter of movie history to life. If Netflix and Murphy wanted, they could turn Hollywood into an anthology looking at different eras of movies through the years. As it stands, this is a show that will appeal to the showrunner's die hard fans and is an easy binge during this social distancing era. You may learn something new about how movies used to be made but it could have been done so much better.

Hollywood premieres May 1st on Netflix.

Netflix

GOOD

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