The second installment of Ryan Murphy’s “American Crime Story” franchise is the tragic tale of a globally famous gay talent and an obscure gay parasite.
Based on Maureen Orth’s “Vulgar Favors,” “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” is also a glamorous and frightening portrait of a certain kind of modern monster — the entitled kept boy who snaps when he loses the keys to what he imagined was his kingdom.
In her book, Orth describes Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) — who shot Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez) at point-blank range on the steps of his Miami villa in July 1997 — as a “narcissistic nightmare of vainglorious self-absorption, a practiced and pathological liar who … was clever enough to pull off his deceptions.”
The nine episodes of Murphy’s series, all carefully crafted by British screenwriter Tom Robb Smith (“London Spy”), track the disintegration of a spoiled child who demanded the maximum payoff for the most minimal effort — and, unable to develop any real relationships with his peers, cruelly targeted older, wealthy gay men who were willing to satisfy his endless needs.
Smith tells his story in reverse, heightening the central mystery of how a scruffy drifter with a baseball cap, backpack and gun approached Versace as he was returning from a stroll to a neighborhood cafe. Was this a random shooting, or did the younger Cunanan know the celebrated Italian fashion designer, recovering from illnesses brought on by a suppressed diagnosis of HIV? Cunanan, already infamous after landing on the FBI’s Most Wanted list following a spree that left four men, including two of his friends, dead, was bumming around Miami for two months to the apparent indifference of the local police. He then killed one last time.
As the mystery unfolds, Murphy, who directs the pilot, and Smith invite us to witness the extremes of gay culture in the 1980s and 1990s. We meet Versace’s boyfriend Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin), and Cunanan’s companions (and ultimate victims), former naval officer Jeff Trail (an excellent Finn Wittrock) and rising young architect David Madson (Cody Fern). We get glimpses of the Versace fashion empire with his unimaginative, controlling sister Donatella (Penelope Cruz) watching enviously as her brother silences his detractors with one ravishing creation after another. And we get a ringside seat at the twisted Cunanan home in San Diego, where Andrew’s con-man father, Pete (future Emmy winner Jon Jon Briones), sold the family home from under his wife and four children before fleeing the country on an embezzlement charge. All the tools Andrew needed to embark on his trajectory of murder and menace he learned at his father’s feet.
The performances of the leads are outstanding, but special mention must be made of Criss, who beautifully captures Cunanan’s ability to tell the biggest lies anyone has ever heard and literally charm the pants off anyone he sets his sights on. He’s a lot like Patricia Highsmith’s Mr. Ripley, but Ripley was a fictional creation. Cunanan, who committed suicide after murdering Versace, was sadly all too real.
Murphy’s ability to showcase well-known performers in surprising cameos continues apace with gems from Mike Farrell, Max Greenfield and even Cathy Moriarty as a wily pawnshop owner.
“The Assassination of Gianni Versace” is more personal and heartfelt than Murphy’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” and proves that when it comes to seductive allure laced with menace, no one in TV is Murphy’s match.