‘Assassination’ ends up a bit flat

At some point we’ll all have to grapple with the

idea that the warped compassion of the modern

true-crime boom implicates its audience and that

viewers are greedily lining up to be part of a lurid

long tail of suffering and despair. If The Assassination

of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story were

a little more interesting, maybe it would be that

lightning rod. But instead it’s a surprisingly inert, if

lushly imagined, tale.

Ryan Murphy, the show’s executive producer

and the director of the first episode, broke out

with Nip/Tuck, a daring plastic-surgery soap. With

its Miami setting and toxic superficiality, it is the

most direct antecedent to The Assassination of

Gianni Versace, more than other creations from

Murphy like Glee, American Horror Story, Feud and

even The People v. O.J. Simpson, the widely acclaimed

first American Crime Story instalment.

Darren Criss, best known as Blaine on Glee, stars

as Andrew Cunanan, the spree

killer who murdered Versace

and four other men in 1997,

before also shooting and killing

(L-R)CodyFern,PenelopeCruz,Darren

himself. The miniseries is only

Criss,RyanMurphyandNinaJacobson

occasionally about Versace

atthepremiereeventafter-partyfor‘The

(Edgar Ramírez) and is instead

AssassinationofGianniVersace:American

something of a biopic

Story’.

about Cunanan, though

wanted to be famous.

it bounces between their

stories.

As the series reminds

us many times, Cunanan

Crime wanted to be perceived

as special. (“Being a part

of something special makes

you special, right?” Actually, that’s

Rachel Berry on the pilot of Glee.).

Criss is impressive and haunting as the

mediocre con man and murderer, but Assassination

is never quite sure what to make of its

central figure, his narcissism or, perhaps, his

sociopaths. FX made eight of the nine episodes

available to critics, and in those episodes, the

show neglects to crack its own case: Like many

people, Cunanan (at least, the fictionalised

version of him depicted here) was a habitual

liar, a social climber, and someone obsessed

with fame and luxury. Unlike almost everyone

else, though, he killed people.

Because the show doesn’t have a substantive

exploration of why, exactly, Cunanan became a

murderer, it toys with the when and the how of it

all, primarily by introducing an often-confusing

timeline. Each episode primarily takes place

chronologically before the last, so the show

largely moves backward. But this winds up being

more obfuscating than illuminating.

This is neither a documentary, nor a deposition,

and its responsibility may be to just be true

enough. But there’s something tragic and unfair

about becoming a spectacle in death, especially

in a spectacle that’s more about a murderer

than any of his victims. Not everyone in this story