The first series in a name chronology series from super-producer Ryan Murphy follows the tragic romance of JFK’s son, John F Kennedy, and publicist Carolyn Bessette. Based on Elizabeth Beller’s book Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, the limited series charts the couple’s whirlwind romance, marriage and deaths.
The couple have long fascinated people as it’s as close as America gets to a Cinderella story. The couple were in the public eye throughout their relationship, and although they gave little away, they were constantly gossiped about. The pair fought in public, bickered in front of paparazzi, and made the headlines of every newspaper throughout the 1990s. This show tries but fails to unpick their enduring popularity and how it must have felt for an ordinary woman to marry into the Kennedy family at one of their most tumultuous points in time.
It’s 1992 when we first meet the couple. John (played by handsome newcomer Paul Anthony Kelly) is aimlessly wandering through life, struggling to find a way to escape his late father’s shadow. Carolyn (Sarah Pidgeon) is working in the marketing department for Calvin Klein (Alessandro Nivola), helping pick Kate Moss for that decade-defining ad campaign.
John is smitten from the moment he meets her, but the pair navigate in very different circles. She comes from a very ordinary background and has worked her way up into the New York fashion elite. He is the son of the most famous president of all time, whose family is the equivalent of the British royals. Yet, she walks through life with a regal grace while he scruffily rides around the city on a bicycle. She’s flying high professionally, entirely sure of herself, while we meet John entirely unsure of his place in society after failing the bar exam.
A Soapy Look Into John and Carolyn’s Romance
While John and Carolyn were iconic, their relationship wasn’t that interesting. Ironically, their love story is the worst thing about this anthology show. Both lived wonderfully interesting lives, but there was nothing overly remarkable about their courtship, well, at least not from what is portrayed here.
The scenes where the pair are alone fall into soap opera territory. The writing can be good, which is why it’s so frustrating when unnecessary drama is added to the show. Instead of writing thoughtful dialogue, imagining how the couple fell in love, the show simply adds some random sex scenes to remind audiences that the pair are compatible. Throughout the run, there are only a handful of scenes that make you really believe the couple are falling in love. That’s entirely due to the writing (Connor Hines, although Kim Rosenstock and Juli Weiner also pen episodes) and not the actor’s chemistry.
The reason the press and public were so fascinated with Carolyn was that she was a real-life Cinderella. She came from nothing, starting as a saleswoman and then becoming a fashion publicist before marrying John. The show fails to really examine how she could rise to a position of even meeting JFK Jr., let alone marry him. The show could have benefited from exploring her backstory as well as his better known one.
It also only touches the tip of the iceberg as to why her extraordinary ordinariness was so appealing to him, and why she could see him as something other than the little boy with the tragic family. John and Carolyn are complex characters, yet this series only begins to scratch the surface of who they were individually and together.
Sarah Pidgeon is magnetic as Carolyn, carrying the same poise as the late style icon. While Paul Anthony Kelly certainly looks the part, he can’t quite handle the emotional weight of the more dramatic material. Some stronger performances might have avoided some of the overly melodramatic early episodes.
An Exploration Into The Kennedy Legacy
Love Story is more effective as an exploration of the last days of Jackie O (Naomi Watts) and the family’s legacy than as a biopic of John and Carolyn. Away from the centrale story in New York, Love Story follows the matriarch coming to terms with her death and what that will look like to an American public. It’s extraordinary to think that a woman like Jackie Onassis had to consider how her death would look to a country and how it would grieve ‘America’s Widow.’ In one poignant moment, in her last days, she burns personal letters to avoid them ending up in the Smithsonian.
Naomi Watts gives by far the best performance of the show as Jackie, a woman who is wise and glamorous even in death. The actress gets the real meat of the series through numerous monologues that remind her son who he is, who his father was, and why he should never follow in that man’s footsteps. It’s a touching and tender tribute to an enduring American icon, even if the accent is slightly too exaggerated. This is more what the show should have been as the writers have perfect realized their inter-family dynamic.
The latter half of the show follows John and Carolyn as he tries to integrate her into the Kennedy family. Not only is she new to the family, but she is socializing in a whole new class of person. Carolyn wasn’t a stranger to celebrities and the elite, but the Kennedy family are a whole new level. It’s knowingly reminiscent of scenes in The Crown or Spencer where Lady Diana tries to keep up with her new in-laws and their unusual etiquette. There’s high society and then there’s the Kennedys.
At nine episodes long, it does drag out and could have dropped an episode or two. The show could have benefited from some more editing and refocusing. The show is cursed by the modern phenomenon of shoving music videos into episodes of TV shows. A quarter of some episodes are taken up with montages and love scenes, all played under 90s pop music with soft lighting. Luckily, the soundtrack is excellent full of all the coolest songs from the era.
For a show about Carolyn and John, they are the least interesting thing about it. The series sidetracks and follows John’s career as a magazine editor and his relationship with Daryl Hannah, which adds context that isn’t entirely necessary to the proceedings. Another edit and some tightening up of the main plot, and this show could have been something really special.
Love Story is at its best when it’s dissecting the Kennedy family as they try to hold onto their legacy after the death of its matriarch. How do you live your life and uphold the weight of a country’s expectations on you purely based on their idealization of your parents?
Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette will air simultaneously on FX and FX on Hulu. The first three episodes dropped on Thursday, February 12 and new episodes will drop every Thursday after.
Learn more about the show at the FX site for the title.
You might also like…
