Written by Ian Brennan And Ryan Murphy And Sharr White And Ted Malawer And Tim Pinckney And Kristina Woo
Directed by Daniel Minahan
Halston: "I have a vision. I'm going to change the face of American fashion."
I realised that I had at least one Ryan Murphy show on Netflix that I had not covered and it was this miniseries from 2021. Created by Sharr White, this five part series explored the rise and fall of fashion designer Roy Halston Frowick (Ewan McGregor).
The series started with a flashback to Halston's childhood to where he used to make hats to comfort his mother. Cut to thirty years later in New York where Halston's determined to make a name for himself in the fashion industry with the formation of his company and making the right connections within the industry.
He got the financial backing from David J. Mahoney (Bill Pullman) and had a partner in Joe Eula (David Pitta) as well as a team that included jewelry designer, Elsa Peretti (Rebecca Dayan) and window dresser, Victor Hugo (Gian Franco Rodriguez). The first episode even had Joel Schumacher (Rory Culkin) working for Halston before the latter had to kick a drug addiction.
Of course throughout this five part series, we had the highs and lows of Halston's career and personal life really highlighted. There's an endearing and enduring friendship he had with Liza Minnelli (Krysta Rodriguez). At times, it seemed like one of the healthier relationships in Halston's life along with his other friendships with Eleanor Lambert (Kelly Bishop) and Martha Graham (Mary Beth Peil).
His relationships with other characters however as the series went along certainly took worse turns. His friendships with both Joe and Elsa both diminished and we saw that being with Victor was more of a toxic pairing in which the latter got revenge by outing Halston's more hedonistic lifestyle. Then there was selling and rebuying his name in the last episode. I did love his purely antagonistic working relationship with Carl Epstein (Jason Kravits).
The miniseries did of course touch on the fact that later in life, Halston had HIV, which was something that he didn't tell many people about. There's a great scene where he does indirectly confide in Liza about his condition that hits the right emotional note while the final scene focused more on leaving his legacy behind to retire.
- The episode titles for this were Becoming Halston, Versailles, The Sweet Smell Of Success, The Party's Over and Critics.
- Other noteworthy actors who appeared in this miniseries included Dilone as Pat Cleveland, Vera Farmiga as Adele, Sietzka Rose as Karen Bjornson and Jack Mikesell as John David Ridge.
- The series is based on the book, Simply Halston by Steven Gaines.
- We saw Halston's grudging partnership with JCPenneys as well as missing the boat for getting on the jeans trend.
- Standout music: Andrea True's More, More, More during sone of the Studio 54 scenes.
- Chronology: From 1938 to 1984 with scenes in Indiana, New York, Versailles to name a few locations.
Halston certainly has the trappings of a usual Ryan Murphy biopic series. It's loose in some of its historical research, very theatrical and elaborate. Ewan McGregor does give a great performance and unlike other biopics from the Murphy oeuvre, it doesn't overrun with episodes.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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