The glamour of it all masks a stale and unwatchable execution in the Netflix series.
Story:
The protagonist of Glamorous is a young gender non-conforming queer guy named Marco Mejia, whose life is seemingly stagnant until he gets a job with the famed makeup mogul Madolyn Addison. It's the first time Marco has a real shot at discovering his own passions, discovering his true identity, and understanding what it means to be queer.
Review:
Having grown up watching The Devil Wears Prada, getting an extension of it with The Bold Type and Emily in Paris, a fashion and workplace dramedy, is definitely a glossy viewing experience. Now, with the ongoing Pride month, Netflix has brought in a series with a similar plotline and a queer person as the leading actor. Miss Benny plays the leading character, Marco, who is young, loud, and allowed to make constant mistakes in both his personal and professional lives.
There's also a reference to The Devil Wears Prada, as Madolyn Addison (Kim Cattrall), the model-turned-beauty mogul, gets two assistants, and the second one is Marco, just like Andy (Anne Hathaway). However, Cattrall is no Meryl Streep, and her character doesn't even aspire to be. She gave more of a hint of Melora Hardin's character, Jacqueline Carlyle, from The Bold Type. Well, that's a positive sign that we don't need difficult bosses around to get the work done.
Cattrall, who has been my hot favourite as Samantha from Sex and the City, makes the series tolerable, which is definitely not bearable to watch at one stretch. Stretching over 10 episodes, each 45 minutes long, we are taken on a journey that hits not just rocks but pellets at every instance.
Miss Benny plays a self-assured but untidy Marco is a smart, stylish, gender nonconforming queer who is feeling stuck. That is, until he obtains a demanding position in a hard sector that may lead him to his goal of being a major beauty influencer. He is shown as a Gen-Zer who is just trying everything possible to gain more followers on his social media pages while creating makeup tutorials and giving life lessons. His sign-off mantra also spreads positivity: "You're beautiful. Say it back."
In the first episode itself, we see his life changing as Madolyn visits a mall where her Glamorous products are sold and Marco is in charge. While applying makeup to her face, he describes the whole process beautifully: "This is more than just paint or glitter. It’s therapy in a tube. Magic in a jar Because it doesn’t just touch your face, it touches you." It's a dialogue that created a breeze around me too, but then it was just dry land.
Although the series' execution is shaky, its concept is sound. What could have worked loses its charm over the course of a ten-hour season that gives Marco all the time in the world to make romantic and professional mistakes you'd expect someone of his age to make. However, over time, it shows little inclination to delve into the more nuanced aspects of his psyche or deal with the mistakes he keeps making.
We see him getting gaslighted by a corporate guy who keeps clinging to him until the end of the series. In a typical manner, he also does the same severely to his colleague, and he reciprocates by making him suffer just like he does.
There's not much mention of LGBTQIA+ characters in their titles, as it normalises them the way it should. Until there's a whole campaign of Pride collections making their way The series claims that Glamorous is the first brand to give a platform and mention to queer people. Given that it's a novel idea and that the entire journey takes up half of the series, it's kind of surprising how they've structured the entire Pride campaign.
Representations are the need of the hour, but not the way Glamorous has portrayed them, showing that it's something that's never been done before and blowing off the minds of the acquirers who want to own every inch of the standalone company.
The coming-of-age tropes that Marco uses to discover his authentic self get lost in translation. The premise is not new except for the fact that a queer person is the lead, and it's great to see his journey as normal as a cis gender. But what doesn't work entirely is making it so stretched that you are majorly distracted. I was close to shutting down the series midway, but an occupational hazard that I had to bear till the end credits in the last episode rolled out
Even the supporting cast is zeroed in as being similar to Marco's characters, and the arcs given to each of them are similar. The series lacks anything for Cattrall to do. She is shown as an entrepreneur and a force of nature, but that adds nothing to her character in its entirety.
I found her character more interesting while she talked to her son and explained the prolonged story of "How I Met Your Father." Sigh!
It's all glamorous, but there's a cakey execution in the Netflix series that's not enjoyable at all.
Verdict:
Kim Cattrall also fails to elevate the series, which had amazing potential!
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