John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette’ Review

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, was a prince who had everything he could want but a bride. One night, at a grand ball, he fell head over heels for a woman unlike any he’d ever met — a commoner, but with a pure heart and a regal bearing. That she seemed to be the one lady uninterested in pursuing him only made him more desperate to pursue her, all the way into what should have been their happily ever after.

It’s the story of Cinderella and all its countless variations, up to and including the fourth season of Bridgerton. It’s the myth invoked by the real-life sagas of Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton and Princess Diana.

Now it’s the blueprint for the latest jewel in executive producer Ryan Murphy’s ever-expanding FX empire, Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette — and on those terms, it’s a solid, if not resounding, success. Just try not to think too hard about the fact that the show’s very existence speaks more to the story’s bitter ending than its sweet beginnings.

The title of the planned anthology, Love Story, is as blunt as it is apt. The nine-part season (the first eight hours of which were sent to critics) is a full-fat romantic drama that embraces the genre’s most enchanting tropes — the rain-soaked kiss, the reformed rake, the tasteful displays of wealth — while grounding them in just enough streetwise reality to make the fantasy feel all the more tangible.

John (Paul Anthony Kelly) may not technically be a prince, but he is “America’s son,” whose flailing stints in theater, law and media seem to be regarded by both his famous family and the general public as mere way stations en route to an inevitable political career. Carolyn (Sarah Pidgeon) is a normie in the sense that her parents are no one prominent, but her effortless style and personal charisma have already marked her as a rising star within Calvin Klein (Alessandro Nivola plays the designer).

From the moment the pair lock eyes at a fundraising gala in 1992, their chemistry is so strong that their coupling may as well be written in the stars. Combined with the fact that we know perfectly well where these people end up — the Max Winkler-directed premiere opens with the hours leading up to their fatal 1999 plane crash — it’s impressive that creator Connor Hines, working off of Elizabeth Beller’s book Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, largely avoids the Wikipedia-summary dutifulness of so many biopics.

Sure, there’s an over-emphasis on the last days of Jackie Kennedy that seems engineered primarily to give All’s Fair victim Naomi Watts a shot at an Emmy nomination. And yeah, there are a few bits of dialogue that sound more exposition-heavy or Hallmark-cheesy than naturalistic. But the nudge-nudge foreshadowing is blessedly kept to a minimum. The period setting, conjured through realistically grimy Manhattan streets and an all-bangers ’90s playlist, feels transportive rather than preciously nostalgic. Most crucially, the ups and downs of the central romance feel driven by internal motivations, not established historical fact.

The characters come to life as knowable and believable human beings. I’ll leave it to the Carolyn fangirls (who are legion even now) to determine how closely Pidgeon captures her aura, or how faithfully costume designer Rudy Mance has replicated her legendarily chic wardrobe. What I can say is that the Tiny Beautiful Things actress does a marvelous job of bringing Carolyn down to earth, imbuing her with a casual warmth and a playful sense of humor while simultaneously capturing the ineffable dazzle that makes you indeed understand why she’s still got fangirls nearly three decades after her death.

By contrast, the most defining characteristic of Kelly’s performance is simply that he is (with hair and makeup assistance from Michelle Ceglia and Milagros Cerdeira, respectively) a dead ringer for John-John. Still, the actor manages here and there to find the lost little boy within People’s 1988 Sexiest Man Alive. Most importantly, he’s able to conjure serious sparks with Pidgeon. There’s a scene in their first date when John reacts to Carolyn casually touching his hand that’ll set any romantic’s heart aflutter.

Watching them together, it’s possible to understand exactly why they fell so hard and fast for each other. It’s easy to see why the public did, too. With their perfectly symmetrical features, their impeccable outfits and their matching lovelorn expressions (not to mention the inherent mystique we as a nation have ascribed to all things Kennedy, which is so strong it’s even propelled a dude with literal brain worms to a position of frightening influence…but I digress), these are people you simply want to watch, even if they’re doing nothing more remarkable than making chitchat at a diner.

But that realization, as the season goes on, feels increasingly uncomfortable. The latter half is defined by Carolyn’s profound discomfort with the public’s obsession. As paparazzi camp on their sidewalk and climb over the hood of their car, Carolyn becomes a princess locked in a tower, terrified to set foot outside lest she’s devoured whole. (Even John, who’s spent his whole life in the spotlight and is frustrated by Carolyn’s reclusiveness, admits he hadn’t anticipated this level of fervor.)

Watching this series, then, it’s hard not to suspect that Carolyn would have hated it — that she would have been humiliated to find her most intimate fears and joys on display, and horrified to discover that not even death could curb the attention. Pleasing its subjects needn’t be the mission of any biographical project (and the couple’s passing means they can’t have opinions about this one, in any case). But the dissonance feels not unlike the one provoked by shows like Pam & Tommy, which purport to vindicate a woman crushed by lurid public attention by putting even more attention on her, whether she likes it or not.

The real Carolyn, the show suggests, was sacrificed at the altar of celebrity, a vibrant young woman reduced to a pretty blank slate on which to project our own fantasies or fears. To its credit, the portrait Love Story paints upon that canvas is a skillful and affectionate one, with a sincere interest in Carolyn and John’s inner lives as people and not just symbols, and a determination to set the record straight. But even as I giggled over their flirty banter or teared up over their painful arguments, I found it hard not to wonder if this wasn’t just another fairy tale, imposed upon a person who suffered so mightily for having been turned into one.