All’s Fair ★
Don’t bother with the Emmy campaign. In All’s Fair, a legal drama that is at best awkward and at worst atrocious, Kim Kardashian gets top billing as Allura Grant, the queen of Los Angeles divorce attorneys. While she’s a walking billboard for costume designer Paula Bradley, Kardashian’s performance is monotonal and emotionally negligent. Imagine a void, daubed with designer product placement and nihilistic girlboss mantras.
Kim Kardashian and Naomi Watts star in new Ryan Murphy drama All’s Fair.
Still, it’s always slay time in the first three episodes of All’s Fair. A cold open flashed back 10 years, with Allura, fellow divorce lawyer Liberty Ronson (Naomi Watts) and investigator Emerald Greene (Niecy Nash-Betts) fleeing a boys’ club firm to set up their own shop, solely representing women. Now, as a new client declares with reverence: “You’re the best divorce lawyers in town, maybe the whole country.” There are old shovels less blunt than the exposition dialogue thrown around here.
The show is slight yet somehow deeply questionable. It ticks off its aims with clunky sequences and then ignores the ramifications. Created by Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story), Jon Robin Baitz (Feud: Capote vs. the Swans), and Joe Baken (Doctor Odyssey), All’s Fair is unreservedly ambitious and ready to go big, which takes it to the edge of parody and self-incrimination.
Primed with wealth porn aimed at the billionaire class, the narrative tends to zip through the cases the firm collectively represent. A wronged woman, played by famous names such as Elizabeth Berkley or Jessica Simpson, explains how terrible her husband is (the men are either darlings or douchebags). The two sides meet, and the arrogant bros on the other side of the table get their comeuppance, usually via dirt dug up by Emerald and some coercive negotiation that is possibly blackmail-adjacent.
Sarah Paulson, Kim Kardashian and Niecy Nash-Betts in All’s Fair.
The show’s backbone is how the women, soon joined by their original mentor, Dina Standish (Glenn Close), deal with their work/life crises. Liberty is nervous about marrying her famous doctor boyfriend because she constantly sees bad divorces, but the driving force is the collapse of Allura’s marriage to Chase Munroe (Matthew Noszka), a superstar footballer 10 years her junior with a vast collection of designer singlets and off-the-shelf affairs.
Chase’s conflict is the entry point for another Murphy regular, Sarah Paulson, who comes in nuclear reactor hot as Carrington Lane, an abrasive former colleague the women left behind who is now their nemesis. “How are you holding up, you poor discarded cum rag,” Carrington asks Allura, with the character living out every bitchy fantasy the writers can collectively muster. It’s camp fun, but All’s Fair doesn’t have the courage of its convictions. Carrington plainly yearns to be one of the girls, and her lip quivers with self-doubt. She should be impregnable.
The women extol their material wealth, urge each other to get revenge when wronged, and celebrate their collective bond. It is meant to be noble and plays out as delusional. Take note of what happens to the firm’s clients post-settlement, and how their duty of care evaporates once they’ve been paid. The most authentic moment is probably Kardashian listing Allura’s latest beauty treatments – salmon sperm facial filler, vaginal blood platelet infusions – with all the vacant enthusiasm of a late-night infomercial.
Sarah Paulson and Glenn Close in All’s Fair.
There are nods to underrepresented ideas, such as Dina’s unsatisfied physical desires as she cares for her ailing husband, former Hollywood heavyweight Doug (Ed O’Neill), but they’re mostly handled with ham-fisted brevity. You also notice how the show’s gravity is thrown off by Kardashian’s flat performance – Nash-Betts is constantly delivering sassy Black woman encouragement, while Watts has a forced energy. At one point Dina refuses to take Allura to a meeting with Carrington because she’s scared Allura will be too emotional. That’s the last thing you should expect from Kardashian’s character.
Murphy directs the first episode with a restless camera, turning every entrance into a music video and circling the women as they hold court in the office. The energy is expressive, but it doesn’t last. All’s Fair throws everything at the wall, but even after three episodes it’s already tiring. The shock value will continue, as will the GIF-friendly snatches such as Kardashian solemnly saying “Yes, mother” to Close, but it’s all so flimsy that a 10-episode season feels like a forced march.
All’s Fair is now streaming on Disney+.
Most Viewed in Culture
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
