If you thought the saintlike halo surrounding the title character in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story‘s premiere was striking, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Not to get all Manchurian Candidate about it, because there’s no reason to believe writer Tom Rob Smith’s take on the designer is anything but sincere. But based on “Manhunt,” the riveting, rhapsodic, terrifying second episode, it’s safe to say Gianni Versace is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life, which makes the hour’s ever-deeper plunge into the abyssal psyche of his murderer — the “white guy who killed four white guys,” as a witness who nearly helps nab him (inaccurately) describes him — all the more frightening to endure.
When the episode opens, Gianni has been stricken with what appears to be but is never referred to explicitly as HIV/AIDS — the real-life Versace family’s principal objection to the series and to reporter Maureen Orth’s Vulgar Favors, the book on which it’s based. He does not push away his partner Antonio for initiating him into the rollicking open relationship that likely exposed him to the virus, even as his sister Donatella blames the younger man for Gianni’s illness. (Their exchange includes some dynamite dialogue sure to be quoted far and wide: “I am not a villain, and he is not a saint.” “My brother has a weakness for beauty. He forgives it anything. But I am not my brother.”) In fact, Gianni quite literally leans on his boyfriend of many years for support when he’s too weak to walk by himself. The sickness’s main effect on him is to dull his creative impulse, because, simply put, he cannot create when he’s sad.
And when he rebounds thanks to the era’s miracle drugs, he’s like a man reborn. He bucks the era’s trends towards scary-skinny models (“They look ill,” he says, perhaps recalling the emaciation of HIV sufferers who weren’t so lucky) and just plain scary designs, arguing that strength, health, and joy are precisely what his clothes are meant to highlight and celebrate in the women who wear it. He challenges his skeptical sister Donatella to a design-off, pitting his bright and buoyant designs against her severe and on-trend approach, and wins over a fashion-show crowd dulled into quiescence by Donatella…but because they love and respect each other so much, Donatella seems legitimately happy his philosophy came out on top, and he certainly does nothing to rub his victory in her face. You can dig on the terrific music cue for the runway scene, the Lightning Seeds’ trip-hoppy Austin Powers soundtrack cover of the Turtles’ “You Showed Me”, or get a kick out of the cattiness involved in making real models’ names recognizable in the scene where Gianni calls out the vogue for emaciation (Shalom! Irina! Karen!), but mostly the effect is just to win us over the same way the designs won over the folks in the front row at the show.
The better angels of Versace’s nature don’t stop flying at the runway’s edge, either. When Antonio brings a guy back to their place for a threeway, Gianni’s too busy working to join in the fun, but he gives his partner his blessing to continue without him, and smiles with quiet delight at the sounds of pleasure coming from the man he loves in the background as he draws. When Antonio proposes, Versace gently rebuffs him, knowing that the younger man would chafe under the commitment but loving him no less for that. For God’s sake, Gianni is even nice to the Donatella impersonator who tries, not for the first time apparently, to crash his compound while Andrew stakes it out! I don’t know if there’s a word in Italian that covers all the connotations of mensch, but Versace is that to a tee.
Compare the love on Gianni’s side of this episode’s ledger to the fear, hate, and horror on Andrew’s. Just two episodes into the series, Darren Criss is cementing the status of his portrayal of Cunanan as one of the all-time great on-screen serial killers, not just calling to mind Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, Tom Noonan as Francis Dolarhyde, Ted Levine as Jame Gumb, or Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, but actually earning the comparisons.
He’s certainly helped in this respect by Smith’s script and the direction of People v. O.J. cinematographer Nelson Cragg. The reference set they assemble for Andrew to inhabit includes a genderbent shower scene by the beach with Andrew’s ersatz friend and escort manager Ronnie (a warm, wounded, marvelously understated Max Greenfield), combining Psycho‘s defining visual with the pre-shower/murder rapport between Norman and Marion Crane, not to mention its star Perkins’s closeted sexuality. (A motel also figures prominently, again with roles reversed: Andrew’s the guest on the run from the law, not the person at the front desk, and he must ingratiate himself to her instead of the other way around.)
Elsewhere, a scene of excruciating sadism, in which an underwear-clad Andrew dances to the Big ‘80s strains of Phil Collins and Philip Bailey’s pounding “Easy Lover” while an escort client slowly suffocates beneath the duct-tape mask Cuanan wrapped around his head (“You’re helpless…accept it…accept it…ACCEPT IT…”) drags the male-on-male-gaze subtext of Bret Easton Ellis and Mary Harron’s respective American Psychos squirming into the harsh Florida light. Simultaneously hitting Pulp Fiction‘s gimp sequence, Boogie Nights‘s “Sister Christian”/”Jesse’s Girl”/”99 Luftballoons” coke deal gone bad, and Silence of the Lambs‘ Buffalo Bill/”Goodbye Horses” buttons as well, this is a scene people will remember. (A closing scene in which Cunanan prefaces his usual torrent of bullshit about his life by straight-up saying “I’m a serial killer” to a prospective suitor also tears a page from the AP playbook.)
And in the most chilling allusion of all, Ronnie — a sweet guy who moved to Miami because he’d heard “people like living by the ocean who don’t have much living left,” then got unexpectedly healthy, and now dreams of opening up a small florist shop with the money he and Andrew have amassed from his escort gigs — knocks on the bathroom door and finds Andrew in full Manhunter Great Red Dragon mode on the other side, the top half of his face rendered obscure and inhuman by the duct tape he’d applied to himself. Because the context of each of these scenes is so specific to who Andrew and Ronnie are, none of it feels derivative or plagiaristic, the way the generic King/Carpenter/Spielberg rehash of Stranger Things does, for example. Indeed, it’s no different from the way it alludes to Christ telling Peter he’d deny him three times when Andrew tells Ronnie, who’s desperate for connection even as Cunanan flees, “When someone asks you if we were friends, you’ll say no.” As I’ve argued before, the horror genre exists in conversation with itself, and Versace is simply using the language established by its forebears to tell a story all its own.
Yet I think the episode’s two most moving and crushing moments don’t fit neatly in either category. The first involves Versace’s final repose: cremated, his ashes are placed in a bag monogrammed with a V, like everything else in the Versace empire. The gold box in which the bag of ashes is placed for transport back to Italy gets its own seat on the plane. Even in death, beauty and luxury are everything.
The second involves Andrew, making his getaway following the murder. After replacing his stolen car’s plates in a Wal-Mart parking lot — grinning like the cat who got the cream at the girl who spots him doing it, pleased beyond reckoning that he’s getting away with it — he drives down the highway with the windows down, blasting Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” and singing along at the top of his lungs while flubbing every other lyric. Contrasted with his petty glee at committing a crime in front of a little kid, this an utterly brutal portrait of forced happiness and feigned freedom. He’s going through the motions of every Brat Pack flick and Bonnie & Clyde knockoff he’s ever seen, but this brat has no pack, this Clyde has no Bonnie. He’s alone with his horror, and he can’t drown that out forever. How do the lyrics go? “I think you’re headed for a breakdown, so be careful not to show it.”
Tag: recap
AMERICAN CRIME STORY Review: “Manhunt”
One thing that sets the second season of American Crime Story apart from its predecessor is that, while People vs. O.J. was told entirely linearly, The Assassination of Gianni Versace hops back and forth in time quite a bit, and also plays with the audience’s expectations. It can be confusing, but I think to a certain extent that is intentional. It sets the tone well at least for the second episode, entitled “Manhunt,” which is very centered on the enigmatic serial killer and murderer of Versace, Andrew Cunanan. Andrew’s own thoughts seem scattered and confusing, though he is able to masterfully charm people into giving him what he wants; whether it’s a room with a view of the ocean or just some plain old attention.
The episode begins, however, with Versace himself in 1994 entering a hospital with his lover Antonio. Though it isn’t spoken outright, it is heavily implied that Versace has AIDS. I looked it up, and it was never confirmed that he was in fact HIV positive, though it does seem likely given it was the height of the epidemic at the time and his chosen lifestyle, funneling through partner after partner. Given the news, a tearful Donatella asks him “What is Versace without you?” He replies, “It is you.” Much of the outright conflict in the episode, and the series thus far, comes from Donatella (Penelope Cruz) butting heads with Antonio (Ricky Martin). She blames Antonio for her brother’s condition, and even after he is killed due to something else entirely, Donatella’s heart still does not soften for Gianni’s lover, as much as he tries to convince her to let bygones be bygones.
The series is beautifully shot, as mentioned in the previous review. One particularly pretty scene early in the episode, which involved almost no dialogue, showed Donatella standing before her brother’s open casket, alone in an enormous room. She unzips a bag and actually puts her brother’s suit on for him, tightening his tie while she says goodbye, not with words but with her eyes. All done up and looking sharp, as he would have wanted, the casket is closed and put into a kiln to be turned to ashes. Gianni Versace is then bagged, boxed, and presumably shipped to Italy. All the glitz and glamour comes down to this for all of us.
But beyond that much of the episode belonged to Darren Criss’s Andrew Cunanan. We begin with him driving a red pick-up truck and swapping license plates with another car outside a Wal-Mart. He’s then on the road to Miami and listening to the radio when we hear a news bulletin about him being wanted for the murder of another man, not Versace, so we are suddenly made aware that this is in the past. Cunanan switches the station and blasts “Gloria” singing and screaming outside the car window with euphoria. He soon arrives in Miami Beach.
There he tells his first of many lies in the city, explaining to an old desk woman at the Normandy Plaza that he grew up in Nice, France. He also tells her that while he’s a man of little means now he plans on becoming a fashion designer. He seems to charm her well enough, and is even able to finagle himself into a room with a view of the ocean later, after some practicing in front of a mirror. Now that he’s in Miami, the official stalking of Versace begins. He heads by the designer’s home and tries to open the gate to no avail. He gazes at the second story windows from across the street hoping to get a glimpse of something. But he knows he may have to play the waiting game here.
In the meantime, he makes friends with HIV survivor and fellow gay man Ronnie (Max Greenfield). After some “magic pills” saved his life, Ronnie headed to Miami Beach. There’s he’s basically been doing drugs and prostituting himself, which Andrew quickly takes to. Really, Ronnie just becomes a sounding board for Andrew to continue lying to. He tells Ronnie that Versace had proposed to him, though it didn’t work out. Andrew talks about Versace dreamily saying “That’s the man I could have been.” Ronnie replies “Been WITH.” Andrew nods.
In one extremely uncomfortable scene to watch, Andrew takes a gentleman back to a lavish hotel room. “I can be submissive,” the old man tells him. But suddenly Andrew is wrapping masking tape around the man’s head, eyes, nostrils… and finally mouth. The old man struggles on the bed while Andrew dances flamboyantly, repeating “Accept it.” Finally, the man stops struggling, Andrew holds a pair of scissors over his head, and for a moment we don’t know if he will kill the man or save him. He saves him, stabbing a small hole over his mouth so he can breathe. The man is clearly shaken, but decides to not tell the police about his encounter, probably due to the shame of being homosexual; we see his is also married as he puts a ring back on his finger after their encounter.
Speaking of the police, they and Detective Lori Wieder’s (Dascha Palanco) efforts are barely touched upon this week, other than to make a point that the FBI had dropped the ball, not putting out fliers that would have warned the general public about Cunanan, and certainly would have alerted them after he sold a gold coin to a pawn shop owner in the area. Wieder pushes for these fliers but doesn’t get her way. I suspect we’ll see more of her butting heads with the feds as the manhunt continues. At the end of the episode, after stalking Versace at a nightclub (a place Wieder also pushed police and the feds to stake out for Cunanan) and failing to find him, Andrew orders a tuna sandwich down the street. The man working there recognizes him from America’s Most Wanted and calls the cops. By the time they get there, Andrew is gone again.
I don’t know the full true story and I’m trying to avoid spoilers, so I don’t know exactly how long this manhunt goes on. I’m hoping it ends in the next episode, as I fear the cat and mouse game could get old fast.
TB gives it: B+
“ACS: The Assassination Of Gianni Versace” Episode 2 Recap: “Manhunt”
If the first episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story scared me, the second episode, “Manhunt” almost lured me into being intrigued but feeling a little dirty about it. I was a hesitant rubbernecker made aware of how a particularly scary monster can feel impossible to look away from.
The introduction of Ronnie (Max Greenfield) felt like an exploration of the disturbing phenomenon, where people know there’s something off about a person like Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), but are unable or simply don’t want to bring themselves to stop talking to him. It reminds me of the folklore that vampires, ghosts, demons, and witches all have to be invited into your home in order to enter. To be fair, that folklore sounds a bit victim-shame-y if I think about it long enough.
For guys doing drugs in a seedy hotel, Ronnie and Andrew have an almost sweet, sad-sack friendship. TVLine noted that this actually the second time that Ryan Murphy has cast Greenfield as a drug addict. I found the New Girl star’s makeup and hair so convincing that I wasn’t sure it was him at first.
Ronnie’s presence is understandably heavy because he’s living at such a unique historical moment: he’s HIV-positive and assumed he was going to die any second. Suddenly, he is given newly discovered treatment and is not immediately dying. He’s based on a real person, and I found myself thinking of him and this especially fragile time in his life for the rest of the episode.
Andrew and Ronnie’s dark and dingy life is harshly contrasted with Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramírez) and Antonio D’Amico’s (Ricky Martin) glamorous lives – they included a fashion show he hosted atop his own devastatingly beautiful swimming pool for Christ’s sake. Seeing Gianni walk – er, glide? arm in arm with two models in glittering dresses does remind me why fashion shows are a cultural problematic fave. I ate up every word of Gianni’s speech about his artistic intentions and vision. It was at times a bit self-important, but it made me respect him and what he was trying to do. It also allowed me to see what might have made Andrew fall in love with him. I’m actually not sure if I think Andrew was in love with him, or if he simply had a jealous obsession with his seemingly perfect life. Gianni does seem like the ideal symbol to fixate an envious rage on. He lives flamboyantly and acts almost like the unofficial mayor of South Beach. I’m reminded of this when his staff bowed to him in the first episode.
I see now that the choice to start the season off with the murder itself and then work up to it chronologically is a classic stab and twist. Seeing the tenderness of Gianni and Antonio’s relationship warms your heart until you remember that their desires lining up is happening days before Gianni will be assassinated. Knowing this painful timing makes the moment from the first episode when Donatella (Penelope Cruz) is berating her brother’s lover for not trying to give him a family all the more heartbreaking.
One more example of people knowing something is not quite right and doing nothing comes along when Andrew takes a client and nearly suffocates him. We watch the man he dominated consider calling the police, but decide against it. I’m not sure what I’d want that man to have done, but it’s interesting to see by the look on his face that he knows on a gut-level he was not safe until Andrew left. I couldn’t help but notice that we’ve seen two examples of women whose intuition tells them to act. Detective Lori Wieder (Dascha Polanco) thinks they should be flyering the very area where Andrew is, and the woman in the pawn shop reports Andrew and doesn’t hear back from the FBI for days.
As the episode goes on, Andrew’s behavior becomes more and more unhinged. It feels like a wink to the camera when he tells the guy at the bar that he’s a serial killer, but it does show just how frayed and sloppy he is becoming. There’s a lot of glorifying serial killers for being so careful and calculated, but Andrew is unraveling and might even be enjoying being almost-caught at every turn. Still, I’m hooked because I really wouldn’t put anything past someone with such a clear absence of a moral compass and his back getting further and further up against a wall.
“ACS: The Assassination Of Gianni Versace” Episode 2 Recap: “Manhunt”
‘Versace’ Recap: Gianni Learns Difficult News & Andrew Stays Under The Radar
The second episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story starts out in Miami in March 1994. Gianni Versace keeps a low profile as he goes to the hospital for blood work. He catches a glimpse of two gaunt men in their side-by-side hospital beds. The show implies that Gianni finds out he’s HIV-positive. (The Versace family vehemently denies this.) Despite the diagnosis, Gianni is certain he will get better. Donatella is devastated over the news. “What is Versace without you?” she asks her brother, who replies, “It will be you.” She continues, “Who am I without you?” He says, “You’ll find out.” Donatella is equal parts angry and sad over the diagnosis. She blames Antonio for allowing Gianni to participate in wild activities. She thinks that Antonio has given Gianni nothing — no marriage, no kids, nothing. But Donatella doesn’t see everything. She doesn’t see Antonio comforting Gianni or taking care of him. Gianni senses the tension between Antonio and Donatella. He begs them to get along so they can all be a family.
Cut to three years later and one day after Gianni’s death. Donatella tells Antonio that “there is no need for us to pretend anymore.” Donatella goes to see Gianni’s body and dresses him in a custom Versace suit. The stoic Donatella finally breaks down in tears over the loss of her beloved brother. She cremates Gianni and takes his ashes back to Italy.
Three months before Gianni’s death, Andrew Cunanan is on the run. He heads to Miami after killing four innocent people. He shows no remorse for the crimes he’s committed. Andrew drives to the Normandy Plaza and asks for a room. Right off the bat, he name-drops Versace and schmoozes the concierge. He stays under the radar, but not completely out of sight. During his first night in Miami, he walks right up to Versace’s villa. The gates are locked, of course. He buys a camera and takes photos of Versace’s house to have for himself.
The police are looking for him, and there are boxes of wanted posters just waiting to be distributed, but they’re not a priority. Detective Lori Wieder thinks otherwise. Agent Evans is convinced that Andrew is headed to Ft. Lauderdale, but he’s right there in South Beach.
Andrew meets a man named Ronnie (Max Greenfield) and asks where he can get some drugs. Ronnie reveals he has AIDS and explains how he made his way to Miami. He asks Andrew if he’s sick, and Andrew quickly gives him a definitive no. Andrew admits that he lost both his best friend and lover in the past year, but doesn’t say anything about being the one to kill them. Ronnie also asks why Andrew’s in Miami. “I know people,” Andrew says. “Versace.” Andrew tells yet another wild story and claims Versace proposed to him, but it “didn’t work out.” When Ronnie says he doesn’t like Gianni’s clothes, Andrew is offended. Andrew calls Gianni a “great creator” and the type of “man I could have been.”
In addition to the murderous side of Andrew, he’s also got a sadomasochistic side. He wants to live out these crazy sexual fantasies that involve duct tape. A lot of duct tape. He picks up an elderly man on the Miami beach and goes back to the man’s hotel room. He loves when his sexual partner is helpless and suffering. Andrew duct tapes the man’s face and nearly suffocates him. The man calls 911 but doesn’t say anything when the responder answers. Another missed opportunity. (Can we also talk about Darren Criss in that pink underwear? Whoa.)
Just a few days before Gianni’s death, there was a fashion show. Donatella thinks Gianni is stuck in the past. His only concerns are fashion and the art of fashion. Donatella considers the politics and image. Donatella and Gianni engage in sibling rivalry at the fashion show, with Gianni coming out on top. Gianni believes this is his second chance. His health is improving, his designs have never been better, and Antonio wants to marry him. He has it all. Meanwhile, Andrew has nothing. “I’ve done nothing my whole life,” Andrew says. He envies Gianni’s life. He wants Gianni’s fame and fortune, but he doesn’t want to work for it. Ronnie knows something is up with Andrew but is too scared to ask.
Andrew trades in an expensive gold coin at a pawn shop for quick cash. When the pawn shop worker looks at the list of wanted posters, Andrew’s isn’t there. Another missed opportunity. He stops for food and the cashier recognizes him from America’s Most Wanted and calls 911. Andrew is gone by the time the police arrive.
Gianni and Antonio decide to go out to a club nearby. Andrew, realizing Gianni’s not home, goes to the same club. Gianni and Antonio leave soon after arriving, realizing they’re done with their wild phase. It’s time to settle down. On the dance floor, Andrew tells a stranger that he’s a “serial killer.” If only the stranger knew that Andrew is being serious…
‘Versace’ Recap: Gianni Learns Difficult News & Andrew Stays Under The Radar
The Assassination of Gianni Versace Review: Episodes 1 and 2
FX’s American Crime Story is back with an all new season, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which takes on yet another 1990s-based murder. Unlike the sprawling focus of The People vs. O.J. Simpson, however, The Assassination of Gianni Versace focuses in on one individual, and explores the path of destruction he created with his actions. Our first The Assassination of Gianni Versace review looks at the first two episodes of the season: “The Man Who Would Be Vogue” and “Manhunt.”
Within the first few minutes of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, it becomes clear this is a different beast than the first season. Besides the obvious difference in subject matter, The Assassination of Gianni Versace operates on a completely different wavelength than People vs, O.J., and its different tone and atmosphere are immediately apparent.
Where as People vs. O.J. was bathed in shadow, even during the day with the California smog making full-blown sunshine impossible, Versace is sun-dappled, opening on the pink-hued, picturesque locals of Miami Beach. If you had been expecting Versace to work its way up to its titular slaying, the first episode of the season, “The Man Who Would Be Vogue,” will catch you completely off guard: the murder of the fashion mogul happens in the beginning of the show.
There’s a slight build-up: director Ryan Murphy gives us a study in contrasts. We watch as the wealthy Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramírez) rises in his breezy, gorgeous mansion and begins his relaxing, pampered day, all while the sweaty, nervous Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) stalks around the beach, living out of a backpack. Cunanan staggers into the crystal clear water and shrieks, half-laughing, half in agony. And then he sets about his foul deed.
Who are these people? Versace doesn’t really introduce them, but in these first few minutes we know exactly who they are. We know Versace is a man who has it all: huge house, lots of money, a steady romantic partner – Antonio D’Amico, played by Ricky Martin – and a lust for life; and we know Cunanan is a man who has literally nothing. And yet that man with nothing is able to quite casually take everything Versace has away with few shots from a handgun.
Just as The People vs. O.J. was not really about O.J. Simpson, The Assassination of Gianni Versace is not really about Gianni Versace. Instead, it uses Versace’s death as a starting point to track the life and crimes of Andrew Cunanan, a con artist and serial killer who was able to evade capture for so long due to indifference. Cunanan was a gay man preying on other gay men – crimes that law enforcement weren’t necessarily chomping at the bit to solve in the 1990s. Homosexuality, and society’s reaction to its culture, is the overarching narrative hook of Versace, as racism was for People vs. O.J.
As episode one unfolds, you get the sense that Ryan Murphy and company are trying to ease the audience into what this new season is going to be while hitting beats familiar to the first season. After Versace is gunned down, the narrative begins jumping around, showing a clearly out-of-its-depth police force already beginning to bungle this huge murder case, as well as ghoulish souvenir hunters willing to break through the police tape to dab a torn-out Versace magazine ad in a pool of the slain fashion designers blood. Penélope Cruz’s Donatella Versace enters the picture, and proceeds to steal the show. Cruz nails the real Donatella’s voice, but also makes the character her own – a brooding-yet-imposing figure trying to figure out how to keep the Versace name (and brand) alive now that her brother is dead. Flashbacks also begin – and these are what you need to start paying attention to. Because as episode two makes clear, the whole show is going to consist of flashbacks.
The Man Who Would Be Vogue presents a scene that the Versace family insists never happened: a moment where Cunanan meets and charms his way into Versace’s life years before the murder. Whether or not this event actually happened is irrelevant – this scene exists to start revealing to us who Cunanan is: a charming, manipulative psychopath, able to sweet-talk his way into seemingly anyone’s life.
Here is The Assassination of Gianni Versace’s biggest strength and weakness. Darren Criss’ performance is remarkable – the type of committed, engrossing work that gets labeled as “career defining” and wins awards. Yet it’s nearly impossible to empathize with Cunanan. One of the People vs. O.J.’s greatest strengths was finding a way to make nearly every character (save possibly Simpson himself) relatable. Even blow-hard lawyer Johnnie Cochran was given a sympathetic, or at least empathetic, backstory. As Versace moves forward, or rather, backward (more on that below), Cunanan becomes worse – a cruel, unfeeling creature who kills with impunity.
Episode 2, “Manhunt,” is the first episode that truly reveals the narrative format the show will be taking. Like Christopher Nolan’s Memento or Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible, Versace is a story told in reverse. Every episode jumps back to events that occurred just before the previous episode. So while “The Man Who Would Be Vogue” has Cunanan already in Miami Beach, about to murder Versace, “Manhunt” presents us with his arrival – blowing into town in a red pickup truck, blasting and singing along to Laura Branigan’s “Gloria.” This brief, amusing moment is perhaps the most likable Cunanan will ever seem in the series. Once he arrives in Miami Beach, however, he instantly begins working the angles, needlessly lying about his past to a hotel manager as he takes up residence in her run-down, pastel-colored hotel by the sea.
One in Miami Beach, Cunanan befriends a local named Ronnie (Max Greenfield), but it’s not entirely clear what, if anything, Cunanan wants out of the friendship, other than perhaps someone to spend time with as he waits to make his big move against Versace. Ronnie is HIV positive, although he never quite comes out and says that. He instead mentions being sick, and then asks Cunanan, “Are you sick?” The vagueness allows the question to linger – Cunanan is not HIV positive, but he has a different sickness somewhere inside him; a sickness robbing him of empathy, driving him to do his terrible deeds.
Sickness is what opens Manhunt as well. In a rather heartbreaking mini-movie taking place right before the title card, we get a whirlwind tour of events in Versace’s life. The fashion designer arrives at a hospital, incognito, and travels down a lonely wing where he sees two sick, dying men laying side by side in hospital beds. Versace is sick, and yet again, the show takes a vague approach to his illness. It’s heavily implied here that Versace has AIDS or is HIV positive, but the Versace family disputes this claim. According to them, the fashion designer had ear cancer. Tom Rob Smith, who wrote the script and helped develop the season, maintains he talked to off-the-record sources who confirmed Versace had HIV. Whether or not Versace did, this moment is intended to establish the fashion designer looking death in the face – and coming back from the brink.
Later in the episode, we see Versace talking about how he feels healthy and alive again, and how he wants his designs to reflect life. But here, in this opening, the focus shifts abruptly from Versace coming to terms with his illness, to Versace’s body being prepared in the morgue – the gaping bullet hole in his face being sealed up so he can be presentable in an open casket. Donatella later arrives, dresses the dead man in a fine suit, and then Versace is cremated. We see all of these minute yet devastating details, and the message is clear: this is what Andrew Cunanan did. With a few bullets, he reduced Versace to a literal pile of ashes – ashes that are soon placed in a gold, ornate box, and flown away on a private jet by Donatella.
“After all he went through, to die like this,” she mutters, her glassy gaze on the box. This is the sum total of an iconic life: dust. It’s haunting, and it’s necessary. Occasionally, Versace will dip into camp territory, but moments like this are essential to remind us that while Cunanan may occasionally seem darkly comedic, he also destroyed lives.
As for Cunanan, “Manhunt” begins to peel back the curtain on him as an individual. Again, Criss’ performance is stellar, full of bluster and confidence always masking panic and rage. In Criss’ hands, Cunanan is a cross between Tom Ripley from The Talented Mr. Ripley and Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, image-obsessed and possessing the cunning ability to adapt and turn himself into whatever the situation calls for. “Manhunt” even gives him a very Bateman-esque moment, where he dances around a room to pop music as a victim struggles before him. This scene is shocking, starting off amusing and descending into high tension. Hoping to score money for drugs, Cunanan has picked-up an older, closeted man at the beach. They go back to the man’s posh hotel room, and Cunanan proceeds to wrap the man’s entire head in duct tape – taking away his humanity, removing any trace of personhood. The man struggles to breathe as Cunanan hovers over him, scissors clenched in a fist. Cunanan eventually stabs a hole around the man’s mouth so the man can breathe. Later, the act over, Cunanan leaves as if nothing happened at all. The man, clearly traumatized, slips on a wedding ring, picks up the phone, and dials 9-1-1. Yet when the operator asks him what his emergency is, the man whimpers, “Nothing,” and hangs up.
This is Cunanan’s ultimate power. By preying on closeted gay men, he knows his chances of being caught are slim to none – because law enforcement doesn’t care. We get a front row seat to this as FBI agents show up and meet with local cops. The FBI is pretty sure Cunanan is coming to, or already in, Florida. When a local cop suggests they hang Cunanan’s WANTED fliers in the gay section of town and start canvasing, the FBI seems utterly indifferent. “This isn’t our top priority,” they say. In other words: they couldn’t care less.
Versace isn’t shying away from the implications presented here: that if someone, somewhere, just gave a damn, Versace (and other people) would still be alive, and Andrew Cunanan would’ve been stopped a lot sooner.
As for Cunanan, he closes out “Manhunt” by letting his mask of sanity slip. While stalking (and failing to find) Versace at a gay nightclub, Cunanan encounters another man. “What do you do?” the man asks. “I’m a serial killer,” Cunanan yells into his ear over the pounding music. When the other man at the club asks him to repeat that, Cunanan launches into a laundry list of jobs: “I’m a banker, I’m a stockbroker, I built movie sets, I…” – here are all Cunanan’s various fake identities coming out in one arterial gush. He senses the end is near. Earlier, Ronnie told him that he personally moved to Miami Beach because he once heard that people who don’t have much time left to live often decide to live by the water. Cunanan has gotten so far on his wits, and lies, but here, in this moment at the club, you sense that he knows he can’t keep this up much longer. You sense that Ronnie’s earlier question is echoing in his head.
“Are you sick?”
The Assassination of Gianni Versace Review: Episodes 1 and 2
American Crime Story Review: Always on the Run Now
Rating: 8.9
In “Manhunt,” an opening flashback takes us into the 1990s, where Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez) is diagnosed with a severe illness. They don’t dwell on the diagnosis, but it’s strongly hinted that Versace had HIV (his family has denied this, and “cancer of the ear” is called out in his Wikipedia entry). Considering ear cancer isn’t contagious, or particularly linked to one’s sexual proclivities, it’s interesting that, following the diagnosis, there’s a showdown between Antonio (Ricky Martin) and Donatella (Penelope Cruz), who seems to blame Antonio, and the couple’s apparently polyamorous lifestyle, for the situation. Gianni begs them to “be a family” as he attempts to regain his health.
We then return to the present (meaning 1997), where Antonio and Donatella are still locking horns as Versace is presented in an open casket and cremated.
We pull back a couple of months, in what we can assume will be a backward-spooling breadcrumb trail of the moments that led Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) to murder Versace. We see him stealing a license plate in a South Carolina Walmart parking lot and tearing down the highway, where a radio station he flips past mentions his own name in connection with the murder of Lee Miglin in Chicago. He blithely changes stations, singing exuberantly along with Laura Branigan’s “Gloria.” (“Gloria, you’re always on the run now / Running after somebody, you gotta get him somehow.”) He arrives in Miami, has an incredibly creepy conversation with the woman at the desk of a sleazy motel (“I’m a fashion student,” he gushes, “and I think Mr. Versace will find my conversation quite wonderful”). He bags a room and unpacks his gun. We see him try the locked gates of Versace’s palazzo on the waterfront. He buys a disposable camera and starts photographing the mansion, seemingly very focused on the gorgon detail on the gate. Back in his hotel, he studies the pictures.
The FBI shows up and the agents act really cagey with the South Beach police, refusing to clarify why they think Cunanan would be in Miami and oddly reluctant to accept help scouring the gay bars, clubs and beaches of the area.
Cunanan immediately hoovers up a buddy who knows where to score. Ronnie (Max Greenfield) is openly HIV positive, so Cunanan makes up a story about all the people he helped working at an AIDS initiative in San Diego. Then, he tops it off with the story of the time Gianni Versace proposed to him over dinner at Stars (a perfect detail, as anyone who was in the Bay Area in the 1990s can attest, right down to the fact that in his haughty description Cunanan slightly mispronounces the name of celebrity chef Jeremiah Tower). He picks up an older man on the beach and… teaches him a very difficult-to-watch lesson in submissiveness. The traumatized man calls 911, then hangs up.
We cut to a fashion show. Gianni complains that the models “look ill.” Donatella shows up, clears the room, and tries to convince him that he’s in danger of being a has-been. He stands his ground; the show’s a success and even his kind of insufferable sister has to concede that his standing up for his own style wasn’t wrong.
Cunanan and Ronnie get high in the hotel room. Ronnie tries to talk “Andy” into opening a florist’s kiosk while Cunanan wraps his face in duct tape, as he had done to the older man.
Antonio tries to talk Gianni into joining a threesome. Gianni sketches instead, pausing to watch them with an inscrutable expression. Later, Antonio says he “doesn’t want that anymore” and says he wants to marry Gianni.
In need of cash, Cunanan stops in at the pawnshop we saw in the season premiere and sells a gold coin. The shopkeeper (Cathy Moriarty) is immediately suspicious and looks at a wall of FBI Wanted flyers. (Gee, too bad the agents didn’t have any particular enthusiasm for distributing his picture.) After watching a fake Donatella trying to get into the house (“No, baby, I’m sorry,” Gianni calls from the balcony, “I can only handle one Donatella”), Cunanan rushes back to the hotel, gets his gun, tears down his serial-killer-standard wall mural of Versace pictures, and leaves Ronnie.
But Versace has left. He and Antonio go to a crowded club, Antonio repeats his marriage proposal. They leave just as Cunanan walks in. “What do you do?” a young man asks him.
“I’m a serial killer.”
‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’ Episode 2 Recap: Andrew Cunanan and the Pink Speedo
After sharing the limelight with the Versaces in the premiere of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Darren Criss’ Andrew Cunanan took over the spotlight in Wednesday night’s second installment. The first episode showed us how the actual murder happened; this one was a step away from that action, and a beginning of the character study of Cunanan that this series really is.
It’s also the introduction of that infamous pink Speedo Criss was spotted wearing on set. Suffice it to say both episode and Speedo do not disappoint.
There’s another big moment near the end of the episode to focus on, but let’s first turn our attention to that Speedo. It comes out as Cunanan walks Miami Beach — where he’s fled to hide after a series of murders across the country. The police manhunt, as we see in parts of this episode, is hugely ineffective. Homophobia runs rampant in the police department; this is the ‘90s, and no one wants to put flyers up in the gayborhood.
As a result, Cunanan is able to hide in plain sight at a motel. He meets Ronnie, a squirrelly guy played by New Girl’s Max Greenfield, who nonetheless is earnest to a fault. Ronnie shares his tale of accepting that he was going to die, only to be flummoxed when he lived. “They handed me my life back, and I didn’t know what to do with it,” he says, voice trembling slightly.
Cunanan’s response is to lament the deaths of his best friend and soulmate — people, we know, he actually killed. When Ronnie questions if they both died that year, Cunanan is ever so slightly defiant in his affirmative response. Trusting as Ronnie is, there’s a hint of skepticism in his eyes.
As depicted by Criss, Cunanan is a performer, a chameleon. His life is whatever he needs it to be in the moment. But he’s not quite convincing enough. There’s always a seed of doubt there. He has to supplement his decent-but-insufficient storytelling skill with charm and sex appeal — hence the Speedo reveal.
Cunanan strips down to his bright, pink swimwear to take a shower on the beach, all while bragging about his connection with Gianni Versace. He goes so far as to invent a proposal from the legendary fashion designer, which Cunanan says “didn’t work out.” His story is clearly bullshit, even to someone as trusting as Ronnie. But when he’s fit, cute, and wearing not much clothing, it’s easy to be charmed by Andrew Cunanan.
Throughout the series, we’ll see men with sharp minds being won over by Cunanan, either sexually or merely to succumb to his will. In this scene, we see exactly how hypnotizing Cunanan can be when he properly mixes his tall tales with his impressive physique. With historical hindsight, we can question why anyone ever trusted Cunanan. We can see how flimsy his stories were. But devils don’t lead with their horns; they appear in forms most tempting. His darkness is seductive, shrouded in grand stories of brushes with fame and fortune. The greatest danger of a man like Andrew Cunanan is in how charismatic he can be.
It’s little wonder Cunanan successfully lures a wealthy, married, older man back to his hotel room, only to duct-tape his face and leave him gasping for air. By the time Cunanan has used his john for a free meal and drink, the man is simply relieved to have survived.
Cunanan eventually leaves the motel and Ronnie, almost running into Gianni Versace himself at a club. He misses the designer, however, and instead ends up dancing with a random guy on the dance floor — yet another man entranced by Cunanan’s looks. This time, though, as the guy asks what Cunanan does, the killer’s chameleon colors fail him.
“I’m a serial killer,” he confesses. The guy questions him, confused. “I said I’m a banker!” Cunanan says. And then he breaks.
“I’m a stockbroker, I’m a shareholder,” he begins. “I’m a paperback writer. I’m a cop. I’m a naval officer. Sometimes, I’m a spy. I build movie sets in Mexico and skyscrapers in Chicago. I sell propane in Minneapolis, import pineapples from the Philippines. I’m the person least likely to forgotten. I’m Andrew Cunanan.”
Without his grand stories, the true Cunanan is laid bare: He’s a kid desperate to be remembered, to be interesting. History has remembered him, of course — not as a banker, or a stockbroker, a shareholder, or any of his other many disguises. In his desperation to be famous, he became infamous.
But it was well into his spree of killings that Cunanan got to the end of his rope. Next week, we’ll learn what drove him to murder Lee Miglin — and the effect it had on his wife, Marilyn Miglin (played by Judith Light). That episode, like this one, and all the others, is just another piece of one complicated puzzle: How did Andrew Cunanan become Andrew Cunanan?
‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Episode 2 Recap: Penelope Cruz is MVP
Not one to pass up a good sense of wordplay, the second episode of FX’s Versace series is titled “Manhunt.” On the surface (and boy is this show delighted and seduced by glitzy, glistening surfaces!) this refers to the FBI’s literal manhunt for Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss). One of America’s Most Wanted killers— even before he shot the Italian designer—Cunanan narrowly avoided being caught by the FBI in the days leading up to the infamous assassination that guaranteed we’d all know his name. But, as the show is focused on the way gay men nurture different kinds of intimacies with one another, the literal meaning of a man hunt is always there in the edges of every scene.
The FBI describes Cunanan as a predatory escort: every interaction he has simmers with a kind of inauthentic authenticity. He’s always calculating how well his lies are landing and how successful he’s being at passing himself off as whoever the person in front of him would like him to be. Since we get to see him alone, where he rehearses his lines in front of the mirror and indulges in off-kilter behavior (like, you know, covering his eyes and nose with duct tape before telling his newfound Miami friend that he’s going to take a shower now), we know there’s something off about him. But he’s charming to a fault, which is why he’s able to lure an older man to hire him and allow him to toy with autoerotic asphyxiation while Cunanan dances around to Philip Bailey and Phil Collins’ “Easy Lover.”
And if the episode is clearly most interested in Cunanan’s ability to seduce any and everyone around him, “Manhunt” also shows us the intimacy that bonded Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez) and Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin). Despite what Gianni’s sister Donatella (Penelope Cruz) would have wanted, the two had found a way to live their lives in contradiction to what’s expected of a couple. No talk of kids or marriage or stability, things presumably Gianni wanted at one point. Instead, they had lots of fun, and often enjoyed inviting others into their bedroom. A point of contention between the two Versace siblings, the episode nevertheless suggests that days before the designer was killed, his beloved Antonio had finally decided to settle down:
“I don’t want this anymore,” he tells Gianni as they lounge by the pool. “I want you. I want to marry you.”
The response he gets is heartbreaking: “You can say it in the morning. But can you say it in the evening?” The hunt, both men know, calls out to Antonio once the sun goes down and he may not be able to let that go as easily as he’d like, even if it is what his lover would ultimately so want.
This Week’s MVP:
Given she’s a graduate of the Almodóvar school of melodrama acting, it shouldn’t be surprising that Cruz is nailing her role as Gianni’s caring if abrasive sister. Here is the kind of larger-than-life woman whose mood swings, paired with her raspy voice and striking blonde hair, would easily make her a punchline (see, for example, Maya Rudolph’s hilarious take on Donatella on SNL). But the Spanish actress plays her like a livewire always on the verge of lashing out (out of grief, out of anger, out of jealousy); what gives her strength is also what threatens to undo her.
Seeing her go head to head against Gianni (days before he’s killed, over disagreements about their runway show) and Antonio (years before, when the free-wheeling promiscuous lifestyle he and Gianni were leading finally took a toll on the designer’s health) was just divine. We expect to see that moment when she yells “You’ve given him NOTHING!” at Antonio to become a go-to reaction gif. But she’s just as good in the quieter moments, like when she seethes silently at seeing her brother’s latest collection be a success despite her reservations about it, or later still when she all but loses it as his remains are cremated, her face a frozen mask of grief.
Update on Ricky’s speedo: it made the briefest of appearances. More importantly, we also got treated to a full-blown sex scene in the Versace bedroom (including a third!) where Martin wore nothing but a black pair of briefs which he soon got rid of.
‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Episode 2 Recap: Penelope Cruz is MVP
The Assassination of Gianni Versace Episode 2 Review: Manhunt
There’s a creeping sense of foreboding that is built effectively throughout this slower-paced episode, only to be deflated time and again. The effect builds stress for the viewer, and shows us that for Andrew Cunanan, violence was not indiscriminate but rather one of many ways to pass the time, like lying on the beach.
The Cunanan parts of the episode feel like the writers telling us: we’re not there yet. This is not the main event. The law enforcement discussion of Andrew’s four murders before Gianni certainly suggests that we will see those killings early on, rewinding to show how Cunanan became the man who showed up on Versace’s doorstep with a gun. Here again, Darren Criss’s performance sells us on this steely-eyed “predatory escort,” and his clear-eyed malevolence is so immediately understood by the audience that it’s more shocking when he doesn’t murder someone, or even physically harm them at all.
In the premier, we were treated to an awful lot of Cunanan showing off his off-putting, yet somehow winning, chameleon-like qualities as he met people in different times, places, orientations, and socio-economic standings. But if the Andrew of Episode 1 is inscrutable, the one we get to know in Episode 2 is surprisingly candid. Even before he tells a cute guy in a club that he’s a serial killer, confessing his many fake personas, we see Ronny repeatedly pick up on his strangeness.
“Manhunt” also expands on Max Greenfield’s Ronnie, a lonely HIV+ gay man who Andrew connects with easily. Ronnie’s story is heartbreaking because while we see it across Greenfield’s perturbed face every time he catches something amiss, he seems to want companionship so much that he’s willing to overlook his intuition. I hope we’ll be seeing more of Greenfield’s effective performance in the future, as his presence in Cunanan’s hotel room during the police raid suggested in the premier.
On that point, we spent more time with our law enforcement officials this episode. It’s startling that they knew Cunanan’s full name after he killed Lee Miglin, his third (known) victim, although they neglect to mention a circumstance of his death that bears a striking similarity to the events of this episode. They even somehow knew that he would be in the general area. But their shortsighted approach to finding their suspect (who needs fliers, anyway!) and their fidelity to the victim profile of closeted men, caused them to miss what was right in front of them all along.
Another heartbreaking moment comes courtesy of Andrew’s victim-who-wasn’t. The man clearly picks up guys often enough (and feels badly enough about it) that he answers “yes” when asked if he’s done it two or three times. The look on his face when he calls 911 to report what has happened is devastating. His self-doubt, shame, and likely correct guess about how that call would be received keep him from reporting, and Cunanan continues on his predatory way. To be clear, it’s not the man’s fault that Cunanan remained free. This small but portentous moment at the phone is an excellent reminder of the #MeToo dynamics specific to the experience of men who experience sexual violence, as the encounter with Cunanan surely is. Any experience where there’s no safe word (or even the means to say one, or otherwise object) and one person nearly dies cannot be considered consensual any longer, even if it started that way. Even if he paid for it.
On the other hand, Versace’s story gave a moving look into Gianni’s life, focusing on his two soul mates: his sister and Antonio. It becomes even more clear that they have no great affection for one another, or at least Donatella doesn’t for Antonio. And she does not mince words. There’s already a hint of what will happen to their relationship after Gianni’s death, and it certainly doesn’t suggest that they will be family, as he urged.
The heartbreak of Gianni surviving HIV but being shot by a near-stranger doesn’t escape Donatella, but it’s a worthwhile reminder for a modern audience, particularly those to young to remember the days when the so-called Gay Plague was a death sentence. Here we also got one of our first real looks into Gianni’s life and creative process, and the way he thought of his life’s work. His wish for models who are not dainty but rather look like they eat, have sex, and live real lives is certainly pleasing to modern sensibilities, and is a reminder of the way he departed from his contemporaries. The shout-out to Carla Bruni (then a model, not yet a first lady), the rise of Galliano and McQueen are reminders that while Gianni is a legend, he still had to fight for it, the empire he created from nothing.
In the premier, it comes across that Gianni is at least a happy participant in he and Antonio’s open sex life, although of course that comes from Antonio. This deeper look into their loving partnership shows that perhaps Gianni tired of that life before Antonio, and perhaps was never as interested to begin with. It’s sweet to see Antonio commit to a life together “in the evening,” not just in the morning, but the knowledge that they will lose each other (and a little real-world knowledge about how all of this turns out for Antonio) turns the moment into a wince.
So far, almost every character who we’ve seen spend any real amount of time with Cunanan has figured out some aspect of his act, though I doubt most of them would suspect what he was truly capable of. The john who Cunanan almost suffocated, his college friend, the high school friend and her boyfriend, and poor Ronny have all noticed. In Murphy’s eyes, Cunanan is a compulsive liar and shapeshifter, though not the most diligent one. He can be convincing for a few minutes, but he quickly loses track of his lies, or otherwise doesn’t care to keep them straight. He even signs his full name and hotel address when he pawns a gold coin, and the pawn shop owner checks the board for where that flyer should be. All of this reinforces the larger point of Versace’s narrative: how did this guy get away with it?
The Assassination of Gianni Versace Episode 2 Review: Manhunt
American Crime Story: Versace Recap: Sex, Lies and Duct Tape
Wednesday’s American Crime Story returned us to the summer of 1997 — La Bouche was topping the charts, body glitter was all the rage and a wide-eyed Andrew Cunanan was arriving in Miami Beach ready to make a name for himself.
And by “make a name,” I mean the bespectacled serial killer conjured yet another alias to secure a room at Miami’s Normandy Plaza, where he came upon a tragic soul named Ronnie (played by New Girl‘s Max Greenfield). I would say he befriended Ronnie, but that would imply Andrew was capable of forming a genuine connection with another human being — and I’d sooner believe that Will Chase grew out his own mustache for this show. (Side note: Anyone with behind-the-scenes intel on Chase’s ‘stache should feel free to drop a comment on the matter below.)
Money wasn’t an issue for the duo, as Andrew’s side business — which mostly involved seducing married men, wrapping their heads in duct tape, then eating room-service lobster — was simply flourishing. You know, if you look past all the lies and drugs and face-stabbing, these two actually had a nice little arrangement. And Ronnie really cared about Andrew; he even had aspirations of opening a flower kiosk together. It was very “Somewhere That’s Green.”
Sadly, Ronnie’s dream was not meant to be. After wrapping his own head in duct tape (there was a lot of that this week) and taking a long shower, Andrew walked out of Ronnie’s apartment — and his life — for good. Even worse, when Ronnie questioned if Andrew considered him a friend, Andrew chillingly replied, “When someone asks if we’re friends, you’ll say no.”
That line, of course, was a reference to the final scene of the pilot when the police knocked down Ronnie’s door looking for Andrew at his last known address. And speaking of the authorities, this episode really showed how little interest the police — and even the FBI — had in pursuing a string of gay-related crimes, even one as twisted as Andrew’s killing spree.
Wednesday’s episode also took us back to 1994, the year Versace was allegedly diagnosed with HIV. (Though Versace’s family denies his illness, Maureen Orth’s biography — upon which this season of American Crime Story is based — claims the fashion icon was HIV-positive at the time of his murder.)
And the fallout from the diagnosis brought out Donatella’s true feelings about Antonio, whom she blamed for her brother’s infection. “He wasn’t enough for you,” she said. “You wanted more. More fun, more men.” She also chastised him for not finding a way to give her brother a family, which she claimed Antonio knew he always wanted. “If you had given him anything, I would have given you respect,” she said. “But you gave him nothing.”
Versace later clashed with his sister, who expressed concerns about newer designers stealing attention — and business — away from the company. (He also argued that the Versace models were too skinny, but that’s a whole other fight.) Determined to prove her wrong, and to prove that he wasn’t going to let his recent diagnosis slow him down, he pulled off a crowd-pleasing runway surprise, temporarily zipping Donatella’s lips. (No small feat, as you can imagine.)
American Crime Story: Versace Recap: Sex, Lies and Duct Tape
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