Review: ‘Feud: Capote vs. the Swans’ is a Fizzy, if Spotty, Take on Rich People Problems

By Kayleigh Donaldson | TV | February 1, 2024 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | TV | February 1, 2024 |

Truman Capote wasn’t just a writer. He was a gadabout, the life and soul of the party whose scathing wit and keen eye towards the dramas of the American upper classes made him a household name even to those who hadn’t read his work. At his peak, he was welcomed on talk shows, hosted legendary parties, and surrounded himself at all times with a coterie of glamorous high-society women he nicknamed his swans. One day, however, things changed, and the invites stopped appearing. The swans fought back, and all because Capote dared to turn their innermost fears and secrets into his latest story.

Ryan Murphy’s empire is built on a back-catalogue of consistent addictiveness yet staggering inconsistency in terms of quality. He can hook audiences far and wide with high-concept luridness and self-conscious camp, but so many of his best ideas sputter out and end with the tedious sigh of someone who gave up halfway through. The history of Glee speaks for itself, while the many seasons of American Horror Story speak volumes as to how Murphy and his cohorts so easily get bored by their own ideas. The smartest move he ever made was getting into the world of biographical dramas, where the well-trodden and extensively documented paths of history forced him to gain a sense of perspective and consistency. Well, that and his willingness to hand off all creative duties to people who seemed to care about what they were doing.

The second season of Feud is primarily the work of playwright Jon Robin Baitz, with none other than the legendary Gus Van Sant on directorial duties for the lion’s share of these eight episodes. Murphy seems to have relegated himself to executive producer duties on the sidelines, which is for the best but also intriguing given that the story of Capote’s social downfall is essentially Murphy catnip: a true story about rich people problems populated by glamorous women, bitchy gay men, and a mixture of camp melancholy that drives home the fragility of popularity. Then again, if Murphy had been more heavily involved, perhaps this season wouldn’t be as consistent as it is.

The stakes here are pretty low, with an ensemble of excellent actors bringing to life the dishy drama that conceals genuine hurt: There’s Babe Paley (Naomi Watts, excellent), the beautiful wife of former CBS titan William Paley (the late Treat Williams) who is defined almost exclusively by her glamour and philandering husband; Slim Keith (Diane Lane), a former Hollywood wife adrift in New York; C.Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny), an old money horsey girl; and Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart), the younger sister of Jackie O who loathes being perennially considered second best. Capote (Tom Hollander) is drawn towards beautiful, well-dressed women who open doors for him but seem trapped by their circumstances. What is life when all one has to do is drink, go to parties, and get your cheating husband to guilt-purchase diamonds?

It’s a snapshot of a long-dead era, one that Feud allows us to understand but mercifully not invest too much of our sympathies in. Babe Paley takes up most of the narrative, often to the detriment of the other swans (Slim is relegated to poorly motivated schemer, mostly because the show cuts out all the interesting stuff from her life.) Naomi Watts is one of our most underserved actresses, a firestorm talent who sadly finds herself in a lot of projects undeserving of her electricity (alas, David Lynch just doesn’t make enough stuff these days to help alleviate this problem.) As Babe, Watts gets to shine as the light and soul of every party who got everything she wanted and hates herself for it. She, like her fellow swans, were raised to marry well and do nothing else with their lives, and she succeeded greatly. The way she holds herself together with stiff upper lip momentum and simmering resentment whenever her husband cheats on her (including one very bloody affair, and I do mean it literally) is palpable. It’s through Watts and Hollander, who nails the Capote voice, that we see a true friendship rather than a collection of rungs up the social ladder.

The comforting low stakes of the story also mean that you get the sense there’s not really enough story here to sustain eight episodes. One padding episode sees James Baldwin turn up for no dang reason and ends up feeling the discarded draft of a play Babitz had been planning. We don’t get to truly know most of these women. C.Z. is fun to be around and Sevigny is perfectly cast but what does she really want from Capote or her friends?

Capote’s downfall is contrasted with the before times, the timeline jumping back and forth from king of the party to drunken loser with no friends and an abusive lover (Russell Tovey.) He’s trapped in a cycle of alcoholism, pill-popping, and writer’s block that leaves him unable to finish the novel that kickstarts his expulsion from the swans’ lives. Hollander gets the affectations, showing Capote as a guy who is perennially On and has no idea when to stop, which makes those glimmers of the real he accidentally lets slip feel so forceful. His Capote is a victim and a bully, the gay man who is both court jester and punching bag. His stumble from the top feels inevitable not simply because of what he writes but because he was never truly welcome at the table as a poor hick and open homosexual without the safety net of old money. On the flip side, there is the casual misogyny of Capote, who seems to adore Babe but doesn’t view the other swans as much more than amusements. At one of many lunches the women attend, she admits that his seething hatred of them, documented in the story that is a barely veiled insight into their lives, made her wonder if he truly hates women. It’s a powerful moment we could have used more of.

The best shows in the Murphyverse are those drenched in sadness. The camp and melodrama only truly work when the emotional epicentre of the narrative is pure tragedy. This season of Feud, much like its Bette and Joan predecessor, understands this, and shows that the gilded cages of money, society, and fame are poor substitutes for true happiness. Everyone here is bloody miserable, whether it’s Capote destroying his life via addiction and self-sabotage, Babe being unable to leave the man who constantly cheats on her, or Lee knowing she will go to the grave with ‘Jackie Kennedy’s sister’ on her tombstone. Their time is ending, and it’s not as though the freewheeling radicalism of the ’60s and ’70s will give them a home.

There are a lot of gaps that I wish Feud: Capote vs. the Swans had filled in, and the narrative is inconsistent, but there’s something fascinating here in its portrait of a dying era populated by figures who it feels like none of us truly missed. To be remembered is one thing, but respected? That’s something else entirely, and Feud wonders if Capote and these women ever truly had that.

Feud: Capote vs. the Swans is now on FX.