Halston

 2021, created by Sharr White - netflix

I came across Ewan McGregor and Pedro Pascal's edition of Variety's Actors on Actors youtube series, and beyond the goofy, boyish Star Wars talk Pascal was interested in discussing McGregor's turn as famous designer Halston in the Netflix mini-series from earlier this year, a mini-series which seemed to have been buried, or maybe it just wasn't advertised in my usual nerdy circles of the interwebs.

Although there was a time I paid some attention to fashion as an industry (the mid-'90's), Halson was not a name I was familiar with.  My wife assured me he used to be a big deal.  The series covers what a big deal he was, both in reality and in his own head, how he landed in fashion (creating hats to cheer up his abused mother as a child turned into creating a hat for Jackie Kennedy after which he exploded as a name) and became a somewhat omnipresent personality in the early 80's.

The series trades off Halston's eccentric personality (which would lead him to having some fiercely loyal friendships, and also into some very unhealthy relationships).  His substance abuse issues are a problem in his life, though the show displays him as a high-functioning abuser.  It's more his egocentricity leads to a lot of drama in this undoubtedly fictionalized presentation of his life, and costs him far more than the drugs did (which cost him a lot).

It was an intriguing watch, but I had a lot of conflicted feelings about it.  Foremost, I have to ask, does McGregor get a "free pass" when playing non-hetero characters?  He seems to do it often, to the point where I had to check what his public status was (just had a child with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, whom he co-starred in Fargo Season 3 and Birds of Prey with, and was previously married with children).  His portray of Halston was a deep character piece, but at times it seemed to fall into mostly affectation.  Now, not knowing Halston, maybe he was a personality built around a mask of affectation, hard for me to say without digging deeper.  

The series also jumps through three decades in his life across five 50-minute episodes so it covers a lot of ground, very quickly, too quickly to transition well between eras.  As well the show's trying to say something about identity, as well as the nature of art versus commerce, but I don't think it ever gets there.  These larger themes never settle on a particular point of view, but it's certainly being examined, if not in enough detail.  

It's not stellar, but it is a complicated series with a lot of intriguing elements (and Krysta Rodriguez is outstanding as Liza Minelli, just mind-blowingly good).