It’s amazing how every time Ryan Murphy puts his paw directly in his TV series, instead of relying on his collaborators, you combine a disaster. At least when he is writing, rather than directing, where he can instead be noticed. It will be because he works too much, it will be because his themes are sad and retried. Yet we continue to welcome all his novelties with curiosity and some horror.
We were able to preview all nine episodes of The Shards, the new series from August 6 on Disney+ on a weekly appointment. So we have a complete picture of the product but of course we will not spoil you anything in this place, whether you have read the starting novel or you have not.
The series is in fact taken from the semi-autobiographical book of Bret Easton Ellis Le schegge (2023) and had a long and complicated gestation. Initially it should have been entrusted to Luca Guadagnino (also very close to the queer world in audiovisual as we know) and destined to HBO. But various productive issues and his having his hands in pasta to too many projects have put him through the ball to Murphy, who wrote the series along with Ellis himself.
The Shards recensione: un teen thriller poco convinto
Set in the vibrant Los Angeles of the 1980s, the serial follows the events of a group of privileged students of the last year of an elite private school. They are struggling with themes such as identity, sex, jealousy, obsession and dangers hidden under the surface of American adolescence.
There is Murphy’s teeth bread at the level of themes: latent and undeclared homosexuality, discrimination, adolescent training novel, obsession for aesthetic perfection (and not only), perversions of various nature. All this is a good dose of thrillers/crimes and two serial killers who terrorized the United States in those years. Yet after 9 episodes, we would not know what exactly the series is talking about, what is concentrated and what gives more space, since it seems to talk about everything (too much) and at the same time nothing (too much).
A verbose and prolissa series, often without reason, whose rhythm is not helped by the duration (50-60 minutes) of each episode. No help from the voice over of the protagonist, Bret (Igby Rigney) whose point of view is what accompanies us in the narrative. Fastious in tone and attitude, so snob and not emotionally engaging.
A double central episode, of the special duration of 30 minutes each, seems a tribute to that of the elections of The Politician, another series of Murphy; this time dedicated to the school dance, the Homecoming, and yet the result is further elongation of the broth from the wrong side of the story.
In the second half The Shards becomes more mature and dark, but perhaps it is too late and gives too many developments for subtlety, supported by a cast especially young and debutant – such as the sons of art Kaia Gerber (daughter of Cindy Crawford and with its own magnetic charm) and Homer Gere (son of Richard Gere), along with Hayes Warner and Graham Campbell.
As the episodes continue the interpreters show some actors, although still uncertain, helped by adults Evan Rachel Wood and Wes Bentley and that almost annoying aesthetic perfection, “find” of some products of the creator of Nip/Tuck and Glee. Maybe if it wasn’t a Murphy & Ellis series, we wouldn’t have paid him all this attention.
L’articolo The Shards: review of Ryan Murphy’s teen thriller series comes from Dituttounpop.it.
