Melania Trump in "Melania." (Photo courtesy Muse Films/Amazon MGM Studios)
Next Thursday, Brett Ratner—director of the “Rush Hour” movies and “X-Men: The Last Stand”—will attend a red carpet premiere for a movie he directed. Such a moment seemed unthinkable, or at least unlikely, when a half-dozen women accused him of abusive sexual behavior in 2017, during the height of the #MeToo movement.
Ratner’s new project, his first in eight years, is “Melania,” a documentary devoted to Melania Trump, which boasts “unprecedented access” to her during the weeks leading up to last year’s inauguration. As for patrons of Ratner’s rehabilitation tour, look no further than Amazon, which paid a jaw-dropping sum for rights to the film; and Donald Trump, who has endeavored to revive the once-radioactive filmmaker’s comatose career.
Puck first reported a year ago that Amazon committed an astronomical $40 million to secure “Melania” as well as a planned docuseries, and many millions more on marketing. In interviews with Status, industry veterans called anything approaching that figure…
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Bella Hadid in "The Beauty." (Photo courtesy Philippe Antonello/FX)
‘The Beauty’ Offers More Ugliness. In a departure from Ryan Murphy’s recent history hiding shows from critics, FX made all 11 episodes of “The Beauty” available in advance. Yet if that fostered an impression this very “The Substance”-like series would be a step up from the producer’s recent filmography, like “Monster: The Ed Gein Story” and the critically pummeled “All’s Fair,” think again.
Instead, “The Beauty” merely reinforces Murphy’s distasteful infatuation with…
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Instead, “The Beauty” merely reinforces Murphy’s distasteful infatuation with mixing nudity, violence and (several times) nude violence—a sort of Reese’s peanut butter cup that puts lurid taste treats together—in a series where that’s conveniently baked into the concept.
The excess, in fact, has more often than not become the point of Murphy’s shows, and his prolific output for FX and Netflix—and the pop culture sizzle they tend to generate, in part due to the actors they attract—only heightens the sense nobody’s even trying anymore to rein in the more questionable choices. Why mess with success, after all, even when it’s a mess?
In the case of “The Beauty,” there’s a “The X-Files”-like component that helps move things along, at least at first, with two agents (Murphy regular Evan Peters and Rebecca Hall) investigating a series of bizarre slayings involving beautiful people who eventually self-immolate. It’s the byproduct of a sexually transmitted virus created in the lab that grants youth and beauty but can have really unfortunate side effects.
Beyond those “One Shot Makes You Hot” billboards, the series sets the tone with the opening sequence, as a gorgeous model (Bella Hadid) goes on a gory killing spree. Behind it all, naturally, is a crazed billionaire (Ashton Kutcher), who is eager to add to his vast fortune by marketing the product, and who dispatches a hyper-caffeinated hit man (Anthony Ramos, slumming) to remove anyone who gets in his way. Like Murphy’s recent “Monster“ installment, “The Beauty” wants to have its cake and eat it too (not as literally), commenting on our obsession with physical appearance while exploiting it, and raising the bar on hypocrisy to vertigo-inducing levels.
In “Ed Gein,” the show drew heavily on the media infatuation with the serial killer, including the various movies he inspired, scolding the audience for having an appetite for what the producers have so artfully fed them. (“This whole series, it turns the camera right on us,” co-creator Ian Brennan told Netflix’s promotional Tudum site.)
“The Beauty” will find its admirers, and it’s mildly watchable in the middle as it flashes back to explain how all this mayhem came into the world. Still, like “Ed Gein,” the series makes an unintended case for the adage, “You are what you eat.” Critic’s score: 4/10.
