New York Mag writer/director Ryan Murphy has taken on a film that has become one of the most polarizing and divisive in recent memory.
He’s a self-described «no-nonsense» filmmaker who has made the kind of films that are, for some, a necessary and even heroic act of resistance against an empire that is fundamentally unmoored from reality.
This movie was no different.
For many people, it’s a film about the power of art and artifice to make us feel better about ourselves and our place in the world.
For others, it represents an assault on our collective humanity.
Murphy is neither of those things.
He knows better.
For one, the film has no interest in «making» us feel good.
He doesn’t pretend to, and it doesn’t care if he does.
The film is a narrative-driven drama about the loss of innocence and the pain of adulthood.
It’s a narrative that, in its own way, is a celebration of the human condition, a celebration that’s often made into a joke, a metaphor, a selfless act of kindness.
That, of course, is what it’s about.
And for Murphy, that’s what makes this movie so special.
Murphy’s not afraid to do something truly terrible, or at least something that, if you’re a little cynical about it, you might not expect to do.
And that’s how this movie works.
Murphy knows the truth about life.
He can’t stand to see it.
This is his story, and he’s going to tell it.
The Best of Ryan Murphy