The myth of the Kennedy family is as ingrained in American culture as it is in modern pop culture. From the closeness Jackie Kennedy sought to cultivate after her husband’s death to Jack Schlossberg’s online persona, over the course of more than half a century, generations of Americans have been given an in-depth look at this family’s lives. Or so they think. With this closeness comes the inevitable tailoring of the Kennedys’ lives, which have been marked by tragedies more so than any other famous family. Yet this closeness they have with the American people is manufactured, tailored so perfectly that one can’t help but feel like they’re a part of their weddings, the birth of their children, and, of course, their mourning processes.
Created and largely written by Connor Hines, “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette,” opens in 1999, with Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy (Sarah Pidgeon) getting her nails done as paparazzi wait outside and shout her name. The flashes of their cameras shine through the windows of the nail salon, and their voices eventually blur into a singular buzzing drone. Carolyn reacts with despondency, looking down at her freshly painted red nails before asking her stylist if they can start over with a neutral color. This act makes it immediately clear that, down to the shape and shade of her nails, Carolyn’s life has become one that is not her own.
We flash back seven years earlier, before she was hounded by the press at every turn, and before she knew John F. Kennedy Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly). While she works her way up at Calvin Klein, John has made headlines for failing the bar exam for a second time. Though they exist in separate worlds, they both operate in the same ways: he works out rigorously; she is meticulous in how she dresses; he is obsessed with becoming a lawyer; she is driven to work her way up at her job. Yet, despite the similarities, once the two meet, it becomes clear they couldn’t be more different. This difference aids their attraction to each other, but, as we know, it also threatens to drive them apart.
Together, Pigeon and Kelly have fantastic chemistry. At the beginning of Carolyn and John’s relationship, they tentatively make eyes at each other across parties and galas, gazes flitting away quickly when the other makes eye contact. As their relationship progresses, the two actors ignite a heated passion, and their arguments become so intense that the paparazzi can’t help but capture them. Yet, it’s not the central pair who deliver the show’s most captivating performances: it’s the women who surround John F. Kennedy Jr. who take the cake as this series’ most interesting players.
Gummer enters each scene she’s in with an air of despair, one that grows as the show progresses, and the Kennedy children begin to realize that, eventually, they will be the only people on earth left to organize the mark this family will leave on the country they’ve given so much to. She stares at the people around her as if she feels like she doesn’t belong, often lashing out in a desperate attempt to unveil just how much she wishes to exile herself, not from the Kennedy name, but from the openness its previous members have held with the press and the American people. If anything, “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette” doesn’t feel like a seedy exposé of one of the most famous relationships of the 20th century; it becomes a fascinating unveiling of the relationship between public and private life.
There have been many women to portray Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, but none so deftly as Naomi Watts does here. As the aging matriarch whose health steadily declines over the show’s first few episodes, Watts’ physicality does most of the talking. She is obsessed with her son’s love life, not because she wants to control him, but because she wants to control the narrative surrounding him and their family’s legacy. John is ultimately drawn to Carolyn because she understands who she is, something that he himself is unsure of. His mother and his sister, Caroline (Grace Gummer), seem to understand this more than he himself does, and they surround him like two women desperate to hold onto any semblance of control they can.
Nothing about this series feels cheap, which is surprising given that Ryan Murphy produces it. Instead, the show coveted writers and craftspeople whose dedication bleeds into every monologue delivered by Pidgeon and Kelly, every piece of clothing they wear, and every fantastic needle drop ranging from Cocteau Twins’ “Heaven or Las Vegas,” to The Velvet Underground & Nico’s “Venus in Furs.” As the different worlds Carolyn and John belong to slowly begin to collide, the series displays this clash by cracking open the mythology surrounding these two figures, as well as the tragic curse that seemed to doom them from their first meeting.
The spectacle that unfolded in our reality was one that both Carolyn and John came to loathe, and instead of reveling in it, this series keeps its viewers at a startling distance. By the end of “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette,” there is still so much left unsaid, forcing the viewer to reckon with whether we ever truly knew these people at all. It feels as if the show’s portrayals of these figures have been shrouded in a purposeful mystery, which by the end of the eight episodes screened for critics doesn’t feel like an oversight, but an admirable creative choice that works in the series’ favor.
Eight episodes were screened for review.
