"Angelyne"mini-series review: the unrecognizable Emmy Rossum shines as the billboard queen
Instructions on how to become famous: free without registration.
In the 1980s, billboards with a girl named Angeline (Emmy Rossum) filled the streets of Los Angeles. Citizens looked up in amazement to see a stranger in a candid pose as she drove by in a pink Cadillac and signed autographs. Who was she and what was she advertising? Of herself, Angeline has said more than once: "I am not a woman, I am the idol of millions", - and the main purpose of the lady was to become famous just for the fact of his existence. Or maybe there was more to it than that?
If you don't live in the City of Angels, you don't know Angeline. The flamboyant and eccentric person is primarily known in California: an urban legend in the flesh, which over time has become an integral part of the Hollywood Hills. Every other person in Los Angeles dreams of becoming the next Elvis Presley or another Marilyn Monroe. With her radical gesture, Angeline did what others lacked the courage and excitement - turned into a star at the snap of her fingers. Only, unlike many other celestials, the heroine did not possess a set of talents that could provide a path to fame. Yes, at one point the goal of the billboards was to promote her dubious musical career (at the time, Angeline was singing in her boyfriend's band). But, as the girl herself recalls afterward, it was just a step in the grand plan. First of all, the young person, who came out of nowhere, just wanted to be famous.
Crowds of fans and gratuitous fame... Ring any bells? The Angeline phenomenon is nothing more than the forerunner of today's Instagram divas. After her triumph came Paris Hilton with a similar lifestyle, and a little later the Kardashian family, about whom it is often said "no one knows why they are famous. Surprisingly, long before the age of social media, the blond girl molded herself. With no promotional tools or PR-collaborations, just her charisma and gift of persuasion alone, Angeline managed to get complete strangers to believe in her and invest in her personal brand.
In the first episode the character speaks with admiration about Barbie, whose philosophy is very close to her: the iconic doll never gets sad and does not feel anything. Isn't that happiness? Through the glitter and tinsel creeps a doubt that everything is not as rosy as it looks on the huge billboards with the "goddess of sex and love" (as Angeline modestly dubbed her persona). The series, based on the investigative journalism of The Hollywood Reporter's Jeff Glazer (Alex Karpowski), departs from the genre's usual narrative. The correspondent tries to get to the bottom of the personality of a childhood idol, but over the course of five episodes, Angeline tugs at the blanket and bends her own line. The episodes look like a flashback to an unreliable narrator: the details of the biography change right before her eyes - so in an interview, a woman from the present tries to smooth over the sharp corners of the past. But no matter how much the deeds are glossed over and the characters are erased from the screen, the deeply hidden mystery bursts out, removing the bright gloss and leaving the harsh truth.
In fact, Angeline is not an animated doll or a flat reflection of the average man's desires (at least not only that). Traditionally, behind the parade poster lurks a whole collection of traumas. To never have to face pain again, a girl long ago escaped into her own rosy fairy tale. Isn't that what we all do at times? We weave our fantasies into a perfect life where we can hide at the first opportunity. In some ways, Angeline was braver than most. Leaving her suffering far behind, she shut herself inside a dream spaceship where there is only love and applause (in the final episode, the writers decided to portray it all literally, which recalls either a reanimated dream or an episode of "Black Mirror"). Although numerous synopses reveal Angeline's personality, we won't dig any further and detail her beautiful tragedy. Let the alien in pink remain a mystery to anyone who decides to watch the show with Emmy Rossum's shocking reincarnation.
Comments