Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette

Ultimately, it is Pidgeon’s Bessette that stays with you, because she feels like an invention, an injection of an idea and a rejection of the sphinx one. .... Kelly is much too recalcitrant or reverent of an actor to get at the root of Kennedy’s sexual appeal, his swagger, but at least he does look the part. The acting mandate was evidently to go puppy. There should be more grit in the story, which is too rhythmically indebted to the swoon beats of “Bridgerton.”

Even for Camelot completists, it’s a bit of a snooze.

Bessette is played by Sarah Pidgeon, managing to do a lot with – script-wise – very little. Kennedy is played by Paul Anthony Kelly, a model in his first major role, who may get the idea eventually. .... Add to this two truly painful performances/vocal impressions – by Naomi Watts as Jackie Onassis, and Dree Hemingway as Hannah.

This is American history for fashion influencers. There isn’t much holding it together, but the looks are on point. .... Is there an urgent lesson in their story for us to ponder? Not really, but even lacking that, the series fails its obligation to entertain.

If only the show was juicy enough to match the uproar. Love Story, all but the finale of which was provided to critics, turns out to be nothing more than an exquisite diorama: gorgeous to look at and not much more. Worse, it’s fundamentally inert.

This results in a surprisingly restrained fusion of The Crown’s later seasons and a Murphyverse obsessed with reframing 20th century American mythology—a story that contains many strong elements but doesn’t dig deep enough to avoid tedium.

As the couple repeatedly state their love for each other, fall out and make up over nine — yes, nine — episodes, their relationship does start to feel like an “endless saga” (one character actually yells this).

If Hines and his collaborators had been daring enough to turn their own cameras more frequently on Carolyn and less on John, perhaps we could have truly felt what it was like to be in Carolyn's head, a place Pidgeon does her level best to center us, when her sense of normalcy imploded. Love Story gives us a sense of what that might have looked like, but it can't make us understand how it really felt.

“Love Story” can’t capture John and Carolyn’s relationship with any flesh-and-blood humanity. It worships at the altar of reenactment, so when it’s time to depict the happenings that haven’t been splashed across the New York Post, the dolls don’t know what to do. Their performers don’t exactly liven things up.