Fosse/Verdon

A biographical drama every bit as daring and razzle-dazzling as the best of Fosse. [1-14 Apr 2019, p.12]

From a storytelling standpoint, the back-and-forth choreography is not without stumbles. Performance-wise, though, FX’s eight-part Fosse/Verdon is never less than all that jazz.

Ultimately, this is a show about the making of entertainment, and the producers do a brilliant job highlighting the individual struggles the process entails, as well as how the people who devote their lives to it are affected.

Fosse/Verdon can never quite escape its deteriorating orbit, plunging closer and closer to the black hole that is its central subject, because it knows, deep down, how essential he is to American art. That could have tanked the whole project. And yet ... it doesn’t. Because, deep down, this is a fantastic show about a marriage.

There’s nothing Michelle Williams can do, no lines written for her to say, that can dim the luster of her performance in this series, which owes everything to her and to Sam Rockwell, and to the exhilarating, if all too brief, musical numbers.

Seeing them portrayed on the small screen by two major movie stars, Michelle Williams and Sam Rockwell, feels like a stunt at first. But Williams especially makes her vulnerable, defiant Verdon come alive--a gladiator in a little black leotard. [5/12 Apr 2019, p.91]

An alluring and thoughtful eight-episode biographical drama.

Sam Rockwell is excellent as the passionate, manipulative, adulation-seeking Fosse. As Gwen Verdon, Michelle Williams is very nearly perfect. ... The bigger issue, and I’m not sure how much it could’ve been avoided, is that the “destructive artist and long-suffering helpmeet/muse” trope gets really freaking old.

Williams is magnificent. ... It’s a small miracle that “Fosse/Verdon” never loses sight of its goal — capturing the love and frustrations of two talented people who could never let each other go. “Fosse/Verdon” is “Scenes from a Marriage” — with none of that jazz.

Stick with it, though, and this limited series provides not only a fascinating snapshot of its time but of the unique qualities of the central duo's relationship.

In its whirling, time-fractured narrative, “Fosse/Verdon” is as ruthless and truth-seeking about its principals as the couple were about the shows and films they worked on together and separately.

It’s all sumptuously produced but heavy spirited, and perhaps too immersive for its own good. It proves the miniseries’ Broadway-and-Hollywood-geek bona fides, but as it powers through the postwar era, it settles into a boozy, smoky, prestige cable groove that’s like a glitzier, slower, less thematically on-point cousin of Mad Men.

The average viewer unfamiliar with these stars and their joined and dueling legacies might struggle to find a way into the soul of “Fosse/Verdon,” though. But what can I say? Not everyone can dance or wants to. Those who can are advised to be patient and find the beat of this story, if only to bask in the performance of an outstanding actress due for a little more recognition.

When this limited series focuses on that relationship, it’s gripping, not least because Rockwell and Williams are remarkable performers doing unsurprisingly great work (Williams in particular is exemplary). And the series does, for the most part, keep its focus there. ... The problem is, Fosse/Verdon doesn’t need the razzle-dazzle, or at least, not this much.

Williams and Rockwell are fantastic (Patricia Arquette might not want to be clearing mantel space for her Escape at Dannemora Emmy just yet), and there are moments when Fosse/Verdon really sings. But it feels like too much talent and potential not properly presented in an eight-episode format.

With little to no attempt at overture or background, viewers must sort themselves between those who’ve done the homework and those who haven’t. ... Thankfully, Fosse/Verdon can be savored entirely through Rockwell and Williams’s compelling pair of performances, which, as you would expect from two of the best actors working today, are achingly layered.

Fosse/Verdon proves to be a darker, more sorrowful meditation on the personal and professional lives of artists, but the eight-episode series benefits from Broadway tunes and re-created dance numbers from the pair’s many successful productions.

Fosse/Verdon has some things going for it that held my interest even when the basic plot didn't. The scenes in which the two break out the dance steps for their productions, are fascinating, even if—maybe especially if—you don't give a tinker's dam about scissor kicks or jazz hands.

Both Rockwell and Williams hold up their end of the bargain, even when the show’s jumbled structure nearly sabotages the whole thing.