USA TODAY International Edition
‘ Hollywood’ looks at Golden Age of film
If we could only go back in time and change one or two things, we'd be able to fix it all, wouldn't we?
That's the earnest, almost pained theme pulsing through Netflix's limited series “Hollywood” ( streaming Friday, the latest star- studded show from producer Ryan Murphy and his frequent collaborator, Ian Brennan.
A seven- episode revisionist look at Tinseltown in post- World War II, “Hollywood” dives into the Golden Age of the movie business to find its more grotesque building blocks – the sexual abuse, nepotism, bribery and mob connections that got those pretty faces up on the big screen. But amid the painful reality of showbiz, the series also takes a stab at rewriting filmmaking history to make Hollywood a more inclusive, diverse place.
With a sparkling cast led by Murphy regulars including Jim Parsons, Darren Criss and Broadway legend Patti LuPone, “Hollywood” mostly manages to achieve a tricky balance of shifting tones. Although it occasionally mean
ders into melodrama and morality lessons, “Hollywood” is a mostly kicky story that imagines what would happen if old- fashioned pictures were a little more newfangled.
The series' ostensible lead is Jack Castello ( David Corenswet), an unnervingly symmetrical straight white man who's so desperate to make it in Hollywood that he takes a gig as a prostitute for Los Angeles's rich and famous.
But Jack is a Trojan Horse lead, and the series' least interesting character. His circle expands to introduce us to a group of diverse young dreamers, including Archie Coleman ( Jeremy Pope), a black gay screenwriter determined to prove he can write about anything; Raymond Ainsley ( Criss), a half- Filipino director who passes as white and wants to use his clout to hire other people of color; Camille Washington ( Laura Harrier) the best contract actress at Ace Pictures, who's stuck playing racist caricatures; and a bumbling young version of real star Rock Hudson ( Jake Picking).
The establishment is filled out by veteran actors playing figures both historical and fictional, including LuPone, Holland Taylor, Dylan McDermott, Queen Latifah and Parsons, who breaks with his Sheldon Cooper mold to play an abusive, despicable agent.
Eventually, most of the group collaborates to make Archie's movie about Peg Entwistle, a real- life white actress who killed herself by jumping off the Hollywood sign in the 1930s. But Raymond wants to cast Camille. A series of unlikely events ( and the endorsement of Eleanor Roosevelt) pushes the movie into production. But this is Hollywood in the late 1940s – it wasn't just white, it was openly racist. Ace Pictures has to fight an uphill battle against established social norms to get the movie made.
The “Hollywood” writers believe in the power of film to change the world, so much so that Criss' Raymond gives voice to that sentiment with the weight of Spider- Man's Uncle Ben, that with great power comes great responsibility.
But they also make clear that movies haven't done enough to change the world for the better. By pointing at ways the industry could have progressed 75 years ago, there is an unspoken disdain for all the lingering problems today.
But the show struggles to deliver a cohesive message, other than that diversity and inclusion are good. But perhaps, noble as that message is, it's enough, as simple and easily digestible as most of the films of that era.
What it lacks in substance, “Hollywood” makes up for with copious style. Joining the glitzy and lurid is Murphy's speciality, and “Hollywood” shares DNA with his plastic surgery FX series “Nip/ Tuck,” which similarly found depravity beneath a glamorous industry.
Flipping between gleeful celebrations and sexually deviant cinema legends produces some whiplash for viewers. But the magnetic performances of the actors, particularly LuPone, Pope and Taylor, eases the transitions from the darker scenes to the sunny ones.
Rewriting history, and using good intentions to make our forbears better, more evolved humans is fun – it's the same impulse to play pretend that makes filmmaking so alluring. As a result, “Hollywood” feels less like a period piece than a fantasy. But even if the story the series spins isn't real, there is comfort in spending seven episodes in this better version of the world.
Movies are all about escape, anyway.