FEBRUARY 3, 2016
When I first heard that FX was producing a 10-part miniseries based on the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, I reacted with a sigh. “Really?” So many of us followed that trial so closely and were so disgusted at its outcome that I, for one, never wanted to hear the name O.J. Simpson again.
But I tuned in anyway last night for the Ryan Murphy-directed premiere, and to my shock, it was not the tabloid TV depiction that I had expected, but instead I found a collection of compelling character profiles of personalities we think we knew.
That is largely due to the talents of screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who have specialized in slightly askew depictions of real-life people in such films as “The People vs. Larry Flynt” and “Man in the Moon.” They have an especially difficult task here, since almost everyone knows the story and certainly everybody knows how it ends.
They have made a smart move in telling the story linearly. After a brief prologue framing the Simpson story as part of the lingering aftermath of the Rodney King case, the story proceeds much as we remember it. The discoveries of both bodies and later, the bloody glove are followed by initial sympathies, then suspicion of, the victim’s husband O.J. Simpson (Cuba Gooding Jr.).
Each act is constructed to introduce the many principals who, while just doing their jobs, become caught up in the web of this case for which they will be known for the rest of their lives. There’s the prosecution team — hard-charging, chain-smoking prosecutor Marcia Clark (Sarah Paulson) and her second, a conflicted Christopher Darden (Sterling K. Brown), and the defense team begins to assemble with Robert Shapiro (John Travolta), Robert Kardashian (David Schwimmer) and eventually, Johnnie Cochran (Courtney B. Vance).
What makes this series so different from the trashfest that I had expected is that Alexander and Karaszewski give each of these familiar principals a moment. It’s not just rushing from incident to incident but taking the time to carefully introduce each character and the conflicts that are already going on in their lives when this earthquake suddenly rocks their worlds.
It’s an approach that has served Ryan Murphy well in his other productions, particularly in the “American Horror Story” anthology series, which year after year has attracted such acting royalty as Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett. He gives actors material that they can sink their teeth into, and most of the stellar cast here make the most of it.
Gooding, not one of my favorite actors, manages to ably walk a fine line as O.J., proclaiming his innocence to all while providing to us a moment of doubt. Vance was born to play Johnnie Cochran, and he manages to balance Cochran’s flamboyance as a media personality while convincing us of his skills as a lawyer. Schwimmer has his best post-“Friends” role in a surprisingly gripping turn as O.J.’s closest confidant Robert Kardashian. And yes, ex-wife Kris (Selma Blair) shows up, having to speak the unfortunate line “Khloe, Kourtney, stop running!” at a funeral.
Among the cast, however, the driver of the production is Sarah Paulson’s Marcia Clark who never stops moving in her compulsion to see Simpson behind bars. Murphy has given Paulson some great material to work with in the past (such as the two-headed woman she played for 10 episodes in last year’s “AHS: Freak Show”). But here Paulson just takes this character and runs with it, and you can never take your eyes off her while she is onscreen. I can’t wait to see what she does next week.
The only disappointment is John Travolta as Robert Shapiro. Travolta (who is also a producer here) has one great acting tool — his facial expressions — and in this series they are totally buried under what seems like a pound of make-up in an effort to physically resemble Shapiro. When he delivers his lines, his mouth moves, but he can’t move anything else. I have no idea why they felt that they had to take this route to the character — Gooding looks nothing like Simpson, it’s simply Sarah Paulson in a curly wig, and Schwimmer’s Kardashian looks like Ross with a grey-streaked pompadour — and they’re all convincing as their characters.
Murphy can be an overly flashy director (“Glee”), but as he directed the brilliant HBO film of Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart,” Murphy seems to realize that the script is the star here and pulls back his direction to complement it. A wise decision.
Clips from forthcoming episodes look equally strong, and we have yet to meet Connie Britton as Nicole’s friend Faye Resnick and a grey-haired Nathan Lane as super-lawyer F. Lee Bailey. If you can mange to put your O.J. fatigue aside, give “The People vs. O.J. Simpson” a try. You’ll be treated to some compelling television.
