An overstuffed season of fact-based dramas, from Winning Time to Under the Banner of Heaven to The Staircase, has been more miss than hit
. There’s not one but two mini-series on the 1980 axe murder of Betty Gore by her friend Candy Montgomery – Hulu’s Candy, which premiered this month and stars Jessica Biel as Montgomery, and an upcoming HBO series from Big Little Lies’ creator David E Kelley with Elizabeth Olsen.
Without exception, these reality-based shows boast decent production budgets and an embarrassment of riches: prestige casting, extensive costumes with occasional prosthetics, moody scores, the leeway to indulge in multiple timelines over several hours. They’re almost all well-made, with solid, sometimes showy direction and remarkably committed performances.
Though my reaction to real-life, and particularly true crime, stories of late has been generally “please, no more,” there are numerous good reasons to watch a ripped-from-the-headlines show. They can offer course corrections to outdated narratives, particularly for women .
There’s also something baseline compelling about watching an actor take on a known quantity – who has not immediately Googled a role to see how the celebrity compares to photos or videos or even loose pop cultural memories of a different real person.
That, too, drags down a series. Take the recent controversy over Winning Time, the fourth wall-breaking, HBO drama about the Showtime-era Los Angeles Lakers that has drawn the.
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