Sarah Pidgeon’s shoe surprise

After stressing and judging all last year during production, can we now acknowledge that Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Anthony Kelly are doing great jobs on Love Story as Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, Jr.? Because they are. Do they always look 100% like the people they are playing? No, but they are in the realm of the real Carolyn and John, enough that it’s not distracting and I can buy into their characters. Also, the show doesn’t suck.

It’s got some wild bits, don’t get me wrong. For instance, the portrayal of Daryl Hannah is amazingly unhinged. At no point do I understand anything Dree Hemingway is doing as Daryl Hannah in the show, and I’m not sure if it’s her, the writing, or the direction most at fault. The portrayal is so wild that it has to be all three equally sharing in the blame. On a similar track, the way the show paints Calvin Klein as an obsessive weirdo who can’t make a decision without Carolyn holding his hand is bizarre. I love Alessandro Nivola’s performance as CK while fully acknowledging this is a batsh-t portrayal of a designer famous for his decisiveness.

But really, after all the worry over how this or that famous moment in the Carolyn and John story was playing out while filming, the show is nailing the Nineties vibes, and it is going somewhere interesting regarding public vs. private, especially how entitled everyone felt to a piece of “John John” and his love story, like he owed America a happy ending his parents couldn’t deliver. And the pressure on Carolyn to succeed in that family is brutal, watching “Carolyn” fall for “John” is like watching a cage close around a butterfly. It’s not just knowing how it will all end, it’s also seeing how conforming to the Kennedys strangles the life and vivacity out of Carolyn.

Sarah Pidgeon was at the SAG Actor Awards, wearing a pink Balenciaga sack dress. This feels like either a contemporary twist on Carolyn’s famous Nineties minimalism, or something Angelina Jolie would wear:

(Paul Anthony Kelly was not there as he just welcomed a child with his wife, Syd.)

As the show enters its final episodes—this week is “The Wedding”, and yes, you KNOW we’ll be watching to see THAT dress recreated—Sarah Pidgeon is doing press rounds. She was at Jimmy Kimmel Live! yesterday, turning up in a suit ensemble with a truly, er, surprising shoe choice. Carolyn would NEVER with those shoes.