Susan Granger’s review of “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans” (FX/Hulu)
Confession: I’m hooked on “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.” I remember when Truman Capote published his lightly fictionalized “La Cote Basque 1965,” an incendiary chapter of “Answered Prayers,” in which he committed ‘publish and perish’ social suicide.
Unlike Season One of Ryan Murphy’s FX anthology series “Feud,” which recounted Bette Davis & Joan Crawford’s animosity, “Capote vs. the Swans” chronicles the rise and fall of author Truman Capote as he viciously eviscerates his prominent socialite friends whose scandalous peccadillos generated gallons of gossip.
Revealed in overlapping flashbacks, the ‘Swans’ are wealthy, self-indulgent trophy wives of powerful men; they befriend witty, openly gay Truman (Tom Hollander), making him their constant companion/confidant/confessor at their wine-soaked lunches at Henri Soule’s chic La Cote Basque restaurant on East 55th Street.
There’s porcelain perfect Babe Paley (Naomi Watts), married to CBS chief Bill Paley (Treat Williams); Jacqueline Kennedy’s jealous sister Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart); blue-blooded gardening expert C.Z. Guest (Chloe Sevigny), married to British/American polo champion Winston Frederick Churchill Guest; and caustic model Slim Keith (Diane Lane), ex-wife of director Howard Hawks, producer Leland Hayward and British banker Kenneth Keith – a.k.a. Baron Keith of Castleacre.
Haunted by the spiteful ghost of his mother (Jessica Lange) and chided by his long-suffering ex-boyfriend Jack Dunphy (Joe Mantello), Truman’s first ‘target’ is Ann Woodward (Demi Moore), dubbed “Bang-Bang,” who ‘accidentally’ shot her banker husband and, literally, got away with murder.
But Tru’s most bitter confrontation was with his beloved Babe Paley. One of three daughters of Boston’s pioneering neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing, Babe was horrified and humiliated when Tru vividly detailed her philandering husband’s dalliance with Happy Rockefeller, wife of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
Adapted by Jon Robin Baitz from Laurence Leamer’s 2021 book “Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal and a Swan Song for an Era” and directed by Gus Van Zant, it’s is a compelling tale of seduction, deception and self-destruction – since Truman lived by Mark Twain’s maxim: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
Eventually sinking into alcoholism and despair, banished from New York social circles, Truman sought refuge in Hollywood with Johnny Carson’s protective ex-wife Joanne (Molly Ringwald).
FX ads pitch the rarefied series as “The Original Housewives,” but it’s far more than that. Obsessed with superficial appearance, these shallow, unhappy WASP trendsetters flaunt conspicuous consumption while zealously guarding their private lives in an era before People magazine delved behind closed doors.
As Truman notes: “A swan can never rest. Underneath the crisp surface of the water, they have to paddle twice as fast and vigorously as an ordinary duck just to stay afloat.”
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans” is an aristocratic 8 – with eight episodes running on FX on Wednesday and/or Hulu on Thursday.
