Love Story: Review by John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bissette – TV Will Bored You | television

A The new product from the Ryan Murphy brand is less reliable than ever. Will it be a triumph on the level of Nip/Tuck or Glee? A return to the form of an American Horror Story opener, much like his last outing The Beauty was? Or will it be something towards the other end of the scale, where everything so bad lurks, Kim Kardashian as a divorce lawyer?

Hmm. The latest is A Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Bissette. It’s a nine-episode series that lasts roughly the same length as the Golden Couple’s real-life relationship and is (unlike All’s Fair) extremely boring. Some of this is due to the fact that, for UK audiences, the Kennedys simply do not have the magic they have long held for Americans. Since Patriarch Joe successfully maneuvered his son John F. Kennedy into politics, the political dynasty has become America’s answer to the royal family. The minute details of their privileged, damned lives have been chronicled in books written by biographers, scandal-seeking tabloid articles, and everything in between. Here, of course, we were naturally less impressed.

Not to mention, it may be necessary to clarify at this point that John F. Kennedy Jr. is JFK’s son (JFK Jr., who heartbreakingly captured the public’s attention on his third birthday, when he saluted the coffin of his assassinated father as the funeral procession passed by). Carolyn Bisset was his wife briefly. They began dating in 1994, married in 1996 and died in 1999, along with her sister Lauren, when the light plane John was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Sarah Pidgeon plays Bisset, and she manages to do a lot with very little script. Kennedy plays Paul Anthony Kelly, a model in his first major role, who may eventually come up with the idea.

You can see why the story (inspired by the book Once Upon a Time, created by Connor Haynes, and produced by Ryan Im) had to be fed into Murphy’s machine. There’s class warfare, with John Jr. being a god and Bessette being a bitchy girl from the wrong side of the tracks (at least from the Kennedys’ point of view, but who wasn’t?). There’s a celebrity culture – the pair were media obsessed from the moment they started dating (after their eyes met via a crowded Amazon fundraiser), especially since it was in the wake of John’s on-off five-year relationship with Daryl Hannah. And there is glamor – the effortlessly elegant Bisset worked for Calvin Klein and became known as a fashion designer and impeccable tastemaker, while John, of course, trailed clouds of glory everywhere he went as well as being an extremely handsome and charismatic figure in every way that could be said to be his right.

Their relationship was complicated by the pressures of fame, endless paparazzi intrusions into their privacy, and Bisset’s alleged drug use and unwillingness to start a family. It should be enough to sustain a miniseries, but what appears on screen is an endless monotonous effort charting what feels like every moment, no matter how narratively pointless, of the couple’s situations before their relationship, courtship and marriage. Up close and stripped of any of Murphy’s trademark glamor, it’s as boring to watch as hearing about any couple you’ve never met before and couldn’t care less about. There’s an extended sequence of Bisset sending John John various bouquets of red roses after newspaper reports of his return to Hannah that will send you into a tailspin, lines that make you want to throw yourself into a canal (“She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met,” “I’ve gone to great lengths to watch you indulge in this pervasive narrative of entitlement and recklessness that afflicts everyone in this family”) and take the poor actors required to deliver to them with you. Swim! Swim fast and swim far! Then swim further, because “between your lineage and your heritage you’re like a spoiled child for emotional avoidance” is coming up behind you.

Add to this two truly excruciating performances/voice impressions – by Naomi Watts as Jackie Onassis, and Dre Hemingway as Hannah (who you should sue, unless she’s actually the stupid ghost that’s being portrayed as such) – and this is not a nine-hour story that anyone would like, at least in this country. But we are a core product of the Murphy market, so I am sure there will not be any slowdown in production or quality checks provided at the factory. Get ready.