FEUD

Series TV doesn’t get much better than this.

Even at its darkest, Feud fascinates with its dissection of a waning social order. .... And what performances. [19 Feb - 10 Mar 2024, p.4]

Watts and Hollander deliver remarkable performances as two lost souls, set adrift without their other half. For all of its delightful bitchiness, Capote vs. The Swans tempers its spite to find deeply resonant humanity in its subjects for a series that’s as heartbreaking as it is haute.

Jon Robin Baitz is the showrunner and writer of all eight episodes, and he brings a smart and vividly piquant energy to the series. That brilliance dissipates in the final two episodes, when death comes for Capote and one of his Swans. Like the show’s central character, perhaps Baitz lost his nerve in the end. Even so, everything that comes before is some of the best television of recent memory.

“Feud: Capote vs. the Swans” captures the shallow fragility of fame and society in a way that’s captivating. Even though it never hides from his awful side, Truman would have loved it.

“Capote vs. The Swans” runs long. Its first half is stronger than its second, and its narrowed interest in one swan, rather than the full flock, doesn’t always befit a sweeping, melancholic saga. (And if my swan analogy felt like a stretch, good luck getting through the show.) Still, no matter who you think comes across as the hero or the villain, the winner or the loser (if anyone), “Feud‘s” second season interrogates each side, knows its main characters, and even widens its scope for a few anthropological assertions.

This tale of the toxic fallout between Truman Capote and his bevy of “swans” — coutured New York socialite women with a thirst for high-end white wine — is gorgeously shot, spikily written and far too long. But it is worth your time, if only for the performance of Tom Hollander as Capote, one so grimly hypnotic it is hard to take your eyes off him.

Murphy manages to capture the appeal, both of Capote and the world that he so vividly depicted.

More irresistible than the most-watched “unscripted” series revolving around the wealthy and as riveting as an ‘80s mini-series, FEUD’s one-a-week episode drops (although it kicked off with two) cannot come fast enough.

There are missteps in the slightly padded eight-hour run – a timeline that darts around confusingly, some dialogue that is a little too obvious and in the later episodes, a few too many flights of fancy – but by choosing to highlight melancholy over meanness, the second Feud burns far brighter then the first.

This “Feud” is like a phone tree, adding strength as it pushes out. Hollander knows how to get under Capote's skin. He just never makes him likable enough to justify the women’s attention even in the good days. Where “Feud” succeeds is in recreating the world they inhabited.

The series offers a combination of squalid scandal and near-Greek tragedy, an addictively tawdry tale of enormously rich, intrinsically unhappy people and the squandering of Capote’s enormous talent.

Watts and Hollander have a magnificent chemistry that ties the show's themes together, and it’s impossible not to miss their dynamic when they’re not on screen.

Capote vs. the Swans is likely narrow in its appeal, but I hope that those interested will sit and spend some time with the series. Its poignance arrives slowly but gradually envelops, taking us on a tour of fading dynasty and, somehow, drawing relevance to our own basic lives.

“Capote vs. the Swans” may not always be artful in how it digests all the ideas heaped on its plate, and treads in dangerous waters when inviting comparison to a cutting wit like Capote’s. Yet the series is ultimately a sincere and moving study of a dynamic that’s rarely explored with such empathy and depth, a novelty that makes its flaws more forgivable as the price of ambition.

Tom Hollander steps out of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s shadow and makes the role his own. Feud is only as good as its friends-turned-foes, and the cast is fantastic.

“Feud: Capote vs. the Swans” is inspired by true events but takes great liberties with real-life characters and situations. As a kind of alternative-universe representation of some fascinating albeit mostly unlikable personalities, it’s hard for us to look away even though we realize we are bearing witness to some high-profile human train wrecks.

Although something interesting is usually going on, there are times the series becomes a little tedious, in part because the story is drawn out to fill the allotted time, but also because the character himself, with his circular journey through rehab, meaningless or toxic liaisons, neediness, self-pity and public clownishness, can become tedious. .... But it’s worth staying the course, for the emotional payoff.

It’s a messy rendering that, at times, reverts to cliché. But beneath the distracting artifice is a psychologically rich, wonderfully acted portrait of an artist torn between his work and the life that fueled it.

As an actor’s showcase that’s more interested in vibes and character dynamics than plot, there’s something rich and throwback-y about this entire franchise, something that’s worth wading through its weaker moments to embrace. The Swans’ world isn’t perfect, but it’s fascinating to watch it drift by.

Despite these powerful standalones, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans never comes together as solidly as it could. Some of the women feel distinctly less defined than others.

Capote Vs. The Swans attempts to capture everything about the lofty world he lived in — a near-impossible task, as the author learned — and the the storytelling is ultimately supplanted by the spectacle of watching the drama’s dazzling ensemble, led by an Emmy-worthy Naomi Watts.

Sometimes you have to take what you get in a series, and what you get in this one is a Capote you may not want all that much of. .... A beautifully acted, directed and written bummer.

Feud doesn't overcome its lack of restraint, but it has enough fluttery touches to soar.

There’s just not enough story to keep this second “Feud” frothy and fun.

The explosive extract (published in Esquire magazine) is dealt with in the opener, which, looking ahead, leaves seven meandering, woozy episodes of set pieces, time-hopping, failed rapprochements, a somewhat overplayed motif (cue a mystical swan gliding around in a bathtub).

Ryan Murphy’s second go at famous feuds focuses on Truman Capote (Tom Hollander) the literary gadfly who befriends and betrays 1960’s socialites he calls swans. The series veers from delicious to depressing, but Emmys please for Hollander and chief swan Naomi Watts.

We’re hopeful that Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans will provide some juicy scenes among its amazing cast, and that will be enough to keep us watching. But the story itself is so low-stakes that it just leaves us cold.

Relieved though I am that “Swans” steers clear of postmortem hagiography, this excavation into how some gossipy friends turned on one another is juicy but a tad forgettable — which is, perhaps, exactly what gossip should be.

The show delivers on the cattiness and the glamor and the factoids, like that Capote served everyone spaghetti and chicken hash alongside the champagne. But it misses a deeper insight into why Capote’s guest list was so revolutionary or how ’60s society was shifting as it happened. Feud chooses easier themes.

The shortcomings ultimately dilute an abundance of showy performances, with Watts’ Babe perhaps the most tragic and heartbreaking figure as someone who truly loved Capote and found it particularly hard to part with his company.

Unlike Capote himself, Capote vs. The Swans is happy just to observe this world without engaging in much by way of conversation. It’s easy to tell that everybody in the show finds what’s happening to be very important. Efforts to invest from the outside are more difficult.

This is a brisk, bitchy eight hours of bitter eye candy that feels like about 120 minutes of consequential content.

A bore. .... Worse than the structural problems, though, is the pox-on-all-your-houses tone — it feels as if the show is looking down on all of its characters, which might be a choice (to reflect Capote’s viewpoint, perhaps) but if so, is a bad one.

Deathly dull, slow and tedious, "Swans" can't even be saved by the star power of its cast, which includes Naomi Watts, Demi Moore, Diane Lane and Calista Flockhart.