Desire for fame the motive behind designer’s slaying
TV REVIEW /
The bar was already set especially high for the second installment of “American Crime Story” by the critical and popular success of last year’s “The People v. O. J. Simpson.”
Unlike Simpson, however, the central character in the FX anthology series was not well-known. The obsessive desire for fame drove Andrew Cunanan to kill one of the most prominent fashion designers in the world.
The nine-episode season of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” premiering tonight, takes the series, loosely based on a book by Maureen Orth, to another level.
Though at times excruciating to watch, it is a riveting and provocative indictment of both homophobia and, on a larger level, our obsessive fascination with celebrity, both real and manufactured.
Versace (Edgar Ramírez) has it, uses it, wallows in it.
Celebrity is what Versace’s boyfriend, Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin), uses to entice attractive young men to follow him from Miami clubs to Versace’s villa. Sometimes Versace is part of the ensuing menage. Other times, he keeps working while the sex continues in the background, almost as if he is feeding directly off its energy as he creates his designs.
Cunanan (Darren Criss) learns from his con-man father, Modesto (Jon Jon Briones), that appearance is everything. As long as you look and act the part, you can pretend to be anyone you want to be.
We meet Cunanan on a sun-bleached morning on the beach as Versace is returning to his gated palazzo after a short walk to buy the newspaper. Cunanan
walks calmly forward, raises his arm and shoots, killing Versace.
From that shocking beginning, screenwriter Tom Rob Smith tells the story of Cunanan’s life in extended flashback, showing viewers how his father doted on him and how Andrew began lying from an early age to hide his family’s lack of status and wealth.
Although Smith is telling Cunanan’s story, he is telling Versace’s as well. The two stories couldn’t be more unalike, but there is a common thread here: Versace wants his work to be noticed, and to accomplish that, he has to be noticed himself.
And like Cunanan, artifice is a key ingredient to making that happen. Until he made what was then a bold decision to come out in an interview with The Advocate, Versace was coy and protective about his sexuality.
When he tells his sister, Donatella (Penelope Cruz), that he’s going to go public about his homosexuality, she is sure the revelation will kill his business.
Instead, Versace is strengthened by it, and so is his brand.
From the outset, Cunanan wanted to be was famous. He wanted people to remember him.
In his final moments, did he think he was guaranteeing cultural immortality by taking his own life?
If so, he was wrong. The fact that it will probably take you a minute or two to recall the name of Gianni Versace’s killer is one reason why “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” is more than just the story of a loser on a killing spree.