Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Halston’ On Netflix, Where Ewan McGregor Plays The One-Named Designer That Dominated ‘70s And ‘80s Fashion

Ryan Murphy sure has been giving Netflix its money’s worth, isn’t he? Halston is Murphy’s fourth series for Netflix since he signed the overall deal with them in 2018. Add two movies to that total, and all the stuff he has in development, and you can tell the guy is busy. But is the story of the one-named fashion designer that dominated the ’70s and ’80s fashion scene any good?

HALSTON: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: 1938, Evansville Indiana. A young boy picks up feathers out of a coop while he hears a loud argument between his parents in his house. He comes in and gives his abused mother a hat to make her feel better.

The Gist: In 1961, Roy Halston Frowick (Ewan McGregor), who was known either by Mr. Halston, or simply Halston, set the fashion world on fire when Jackie Kennedy sported one of his pillbox hats during her husband’s inauguration. Bergdorff Goodman, who sold his hats, couldn’t keep them in stock.

By 1968, though, women had more or less stopped wearing hats (even Jackie), and Bergdorff’s was looking for Halston’s next move. Halston, always confident in his abilities, and he’s also felt like an outsider his whole life and career. It’s that attitude that got the attention of Ed Austin (Sullivan Jones), who eventually started dating Halston after the two met in a bar.

He’s also confident because Ralph Lifshitz managed to sell his wide “Polo” ties to Bloomies’ and was able to sell them under his new name: Ralph Lauren. Halston proposes a clothing line and a store-within-a-store to Bergdorff’s, but the line he designs is a big fat failure.

Figuring that no store can contain him, anyway, he decides to strike out on his own. He gathers a team, starting with his friend and Illustrator, Joe Eula (David Pittu). Joe introduces him to Liza Minnelli (Krysta Rodriguez), who wants to get out of the shadow of her mother, Judy Garland. Halston sees her as his muse. Other members of his team is his other muse, model Elsa Peretti (Rebecca Dayan) and a young window dresser named Joel Schumacher (Rory Culkin). He gets some financing from one of his old Bergdorff’s customers, who insists Halston hire her goofy son.

While the line for his first fashion show comes together, Halston finds out that Schumacher is shooting up speed to keep up the pace, and he insists that Schumacher get clean. In turn, Schumacher shows him some dyed fabric that inspires Halston to use the style for his entire line. After showing socialite Babe Paley (Regina Schneider) the line, including his new washable suede dresses, and he gets his first big sale.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? In the extensive catalog of Ryan Murphy shows, Halston reminds us more of the Feud series rather than some of his faster-paced fare like Ratched.

Our Take: Halston is based on the biography Simply Halston by Steven Gaines, and despite some of the gripes from Halston’s estate about the series’ accuracy, the show is more about the broad strokes of Halston’s life than the tiny details. EPs Murphy, Ian Brennan, McGregor, Sharr White and Daniel Minahan and their writers are trying to cover the time period from 1961 to Halston’s death in 1990 in five 45-minute episodes. You need those broad strokes in order to cover everything, including his heady years hanging out with Minnelli and his crew at Studio 54 in the late ’70s.

But, while many of Murphy’s shows tend to cram a season’s worth of plot into a couple of episodes, it feels like Halston moves at too languid of a pace. There’s a lot of elbow room for the plot to move in the first episode, but in many places, it doesn’t go anywhere. For instance, when Eula takes Halston to see Minnelli, we see Liza’s breakout song “Liza With a Z” pretty much in full. Granted, Rodriguez gives a fine performance of a complicated song, but did we need to see the entire thing?

Other moments seem to slow things down, like Halston figuring out the black-turtleneck, slicked-back hair and shades look that he’d carry from 1968 until his death. A monologue that Halston gives Ed when his advances are rejected at first is straight out of the Murphy playbook, but felt out of place only a couple of minutes into the series.

Then there’s McGregor. He makes a great effort to channel Halston’s manner and speaking voice, but he often comes out sounding more like an American Obi-wan Kenobi than Halston. But what’s interesting is that, despite the distracting Halston impression he’s doing, he’s also carrying the entire show on his shoulders. His is the only character who any depth and dimension. What we’ve seen of Liza so far doesn’t match how dynamic she was in real life, and Culkin’s version of Schumacher makes the future film director look like a sad sack — remember, he’s the director who had the balls to put George Clooney in a Batman suit with nipples.

Perhaps as things go along, we’ll see more development from these characters. But it may also be that Halston is the only one we see any kind of depth from. And that feels like a missed opportunity.

Sex and Skin: Ed and Halston have sex at about the six minute mark, in a scene that you’ll only see on one of Murphy’s Netflix shows.

Parting Shot: After Babe Paley sees the synthetic suede dresses, she tells Halston, “I’ll buy one in every color.”

Sleeper Star: Krysta Rodriguez really nails “Liza With a Z,” and we’re looking forward to seeing how she embodies the ’70s superstar version of Liza.

Most Pilot-y Line: Halston to Ed: “Maybe I’m an outsider to, my whole life. Getting sideways glances from white guys in Brooks Brothers suits for what I was and who I liked or who I was and what I liked. Till one day I just stopped giving a flying fuck.” Nice speech, but no way to pick up a guy in a bar.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While Halston isn’t a great show by a longshot, it’s one of the few recent Murphy shows that we haven’t wanted to turn off fifteen minutes in. And McGregor’s performance ties together the flatter characters that are depicted in Halston’s orbit. Despite the broad strokes, five episodes sounds just about right for this series.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Halston On Netflix