Vick's Picks movie reviews for May 2026
- by Vick Silkenpen
Movie Critic
Love Story: The early evening of July 16, 1999, my partner and I were enjoying Bloody Marys in Lower Manhattan at the Greatest Bar on Earth, on the 107th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. We were in part of the Windows on the World restaurant complex, enjoying the panoramic views from the large windows.
A crowd of people standing on the Top of the World observation deck on the opposite Twin Tower (South) nearby waved at us enthusiastically. We waved back and raised our glasses. The Statue of Liberty peered at all of us atop our two perches as she poked up through a soupy fog playing hide-and-seek in New York Harbor. We commented to each other how the thick grey of the weather made it hard to see very far out, even up high in the sky.
Later, in our hotel room, the TV informed us that the same sky that same evening had swallowed up America’s prince, John Kennedy Jr., and his beautiful young wife and her sister. They were missing!
We all know the story of what happened to the small plane and about the deaths of the three on board.
Ryan Murphy has cobbled together a complicated version of the love story behind the love story of John Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette in this FX series. Newer actors Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Kelly had to overcome immense bias to make this even remotely believable, since every move they made and every word they spoke is compared to the public memory of the two icons.
The tabloids told us all sorts of versions and views of the two’s love story so that it itself became part of Murphy’s version. Identity becomes the struggle. That journey begins with Carolyn meeting John when she worked for Calvin Klein. He gets her phone number as she fits his new suit!
However, they still date others, and John even extends his relationship with movie star Daryl Hannah after dating Carolyn, which causes quite a bit of speculation about the content of their conversations in this script.
But as the central romance progresses toward eventual exclusivity, Carolyn realizes the simultaneous and increasing loss of privacy is one price of fame, which drives her into near-depression. This reaction baffles John, since he has dealt with it throughout his high-profile life. On top of that, there is the pressure of fitting into the Kennedy family and what is or isn’t expected of her as such. The scripted relational problems with Caroline Kennedy (played perfectly by Meryl Streep’s daughter, Grace Gummer) probe this difficulty.
Of course there are the tabloid accounts of various storms in their marriage and these seemed to hit Carolyn very hard in Murphy’s series. However, they were working through this and even taking counseling to make the ride less bumpy right up to the point of the fateful decision to fly John’s small plane to the wedding at Martha’s Vineyard. Murphy’s series is worth the time, not only for the fashion influences of John and Carolyn and the transcendent nature of their love, but also for the nuances that make them so unforgettable to many of us.
DTF St. Louis: There are series that defy our initial expectations and can make them so fun to watch. Such is the case in this HBO production about a rather unique love triangle that is not only darkly funny but will also break your heart at the same time.
The ensemble of actors is simply top-notch, and it shows. Jason Bateman plays Clark Forrest, a somewhat popular Missouri TV weatherman who leads a rather predictable suburban life. Still, he also has a repressed sexual fantasy life that begins sprouting trees of various desires. Forrest strikes up an immediate friendship with the weather program’s caring sign-language translator, Floyd, a phenomenal role that I am certain will win David Harbor (the sheriff in Stranger Things) some awards or at least nominations.
Floyd trustingly reveals to Clark his flagging sexual relationship with his enigmatic wife, Carol (Linda Cardellini), and Clark convinces Floyd to join him in the exploration of a new app for married people looking for sex with no attachments. The big-hearted, overweight Floyd is intrigued by the profiling aspects of it all, while Clark has his own motives.
But back up a moment. The series begins with the apparent murder of one member of the above triangle. To solve this riddle, two very mismatched detectives get on the trail of the murderer or murderers by tracking the usual clues: video footage and text messages. The local cop, Donoghue (Richard Jenkins), grasps at the “normal” resolutions and motives, while special crimes officer and “porn positive” Jodie Plumb (Joy Sunday) is more interested in digging into what she thinks are the more sordid possibilities.
Creator Steven Conrad has perfected what has been categorized as suburban noir, where dark things can surface in the apparently safe neighborhoods of America.
As you can no doubt tell from my descriptions, I am struggling not to include too many spoilers. Suffice it to say that the characters are vividly alive even though death is evidently key with twists, trysts, and turns. Don’t skip this one.
The Gayly online. 5/10/26 @ 3:15 p.m. CST.