FX's "The Shards" Shattered An Outstanding Book
From
Ubiquitous@weberm@polaris.net to
rec.arts.tv,rec.arts.books on Wed Oct 7 04:30:42 2026
From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv
Screen adaptations of beloved novels will never adequately compete with
the version in the reader’s head. But FX’s adaptation of Bret Easton
Ellis’s 2025 novel “The Shards” begs the question: did Ryan Murphy even
like the book?
Both the novel and the series of the same name follow a fictionalized
version of the author in his senior year of high school. Bret, a
wealthy and popular teen at an exclusive L.A. prep school, finds his
carefully constructed world falling apart as a serial killer stalks the
area and a mysterious new student, Robert, seems intent on causing
chaos that only Bret notices.
The first couple of episodes almost make you think the show could be
good. It’s heightened, to be sure, with violent tonal whiplash and
acting that ranges from excellent to atrocious, but it’s relatively
enjoyable and close enough to the novel that the term “adaptation”
feels merited. The third episode goes completely off the rails and
never returns. While television is a collaborative medium and it’s near-impossible to ascribe any credit or blame to one figure, I feel
fairly confident that Ellis is responsible for every good adaptational
choice.
Once he’s gone, the writing gets shallow, and the momentum craters into meandering, invented diversions with no connection to the novel. Rather
than a tight story, the series bloats to focus on cable access dance
shows, roller disco, and an adolescent porn star (a bastardization of
one of the novel’s best characters, who decidedly did not make adult
films on page).
In some ways, Murphy and Ellis’s sensibilities are surprisingly well-
suited. Style and surfaces matter intensely in both men’s work. Ryan
Murphy has many sins as a creator: often shallow writing, inconsistent
casting ranging from outstanding to atrocious, a strange perverted sensibility. But one thing the prolific showrunner truly excels at is
visuals.
Both also understand the power of a good needle drop. Ellis weaves the soundtrack of his protagonist’s year throughout the story, with
Ultravox’s “Vienna” as a textual leitmotif, and other hits pepper the
pages to great effect. The series is less judicious with the music
choices, interspersing iconic 1980s classics every few minutes, but
when the music is that good it’s hard to be upset.
Where they differ wildly is tone. This is where the gap between the
pair becomes astonishingly apparent.
For a book about uber-wealthy teens in the ’80s facing a serial killer,
the novel is shockingly grounded. An intriguing ambiguity runs
throughout, a moody tone that keeps you at arm’s length while still
drawing you in. Narrated by a middle-aged man looking back at his
adolescence, there’s a sense of inevitability, a tragedy long-since
mourned but never fully recovered. This distance lets the darker
elements feel menacing without becoming exploitative.
The series, by contrast, indulges in every gratuity and absurdity. The
novel’s implied threats of violence become extended sequences. The
nuanced, subtle characters become exposition machines with one-note motivations, aside from the moderately more complex Bret and the
intentionally enigmatic Robert. The cool detachment gives way to campy
excess, to the show’s detriment.
The show is propped up by a truly excellent leading performance by Igby
Rigney as Bret. The series doesn’t deserve what would otherwise be a star-making turn, but as a lover of the novel, I’m thrilled that at
least the central character is captured so well.
Rigney is a much-needed saving grace in an otherwise dire cast of 20- somethings posing as adolescents. He has a snarky, cynical, over-it
affect, classic for insecure teens pretending sophistication. The
narration could get grating, especially with the drop in writing
quality after the second episode, but he perfectly captures the tone
and character.
Homer Gere is close in his performance as new kid Robert Mallory. He
captures the unsettling edge between creepy and charming effectively,
but the grosser elements feel forced rather than destabilizing.
In the silent moments or casual conversations, Kaia Gerber’s stunning
beauty and magnetism make her almost work as golden-girl Susan
Reynolds, but when the script calls for complexity or nuance, her
limited acting range shows. When she’s tasked with narration or
exposition instead of Rigney, the cool novelistic prose sounds stilted
rather than authentic. But she at least brings something to the role,
which is more than can be said for Graham Campbell, who sleepwalks his
way through a truly atrocious performance as her boyfriend Thom.
Wes Bentley is phenomenal as the film-executive father of Bret’s
girlfriend, Debbie (Hayes Warner, clearly having fun and doing her best
with the awful material she’s saddled with). His grooming of Bret is
grounded predatory, yet charismatic enough to be realistic. He’s wicked without becoming cartoonish, though the novel’s foundation and
Bentley’s talent are likely doing the heavy lifting for the ever-
weakening writing.
Luca Guadagnino originally had the option for adapting the novel, and I desperately wish we could be treated to his vision. But the best thing
about a disappointing adaptation of a great novel is that the book
still exists, unsullied and pure. The next time I reread the novel, the
show will be far from my mind, meaning nothing to me.
--
Democrats and the liberal media hate President Trump more than they
love this country.
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From
Your Name@YourName@YourISP.com to
rec.arts.tv,rec.arts.books on Sun Oct 11 14:25:18 2026
From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv
On 2026-10-08 15:53:38 +0000, Steve Hayes said:
On Thu, 8 Oct 2026 08:10:06 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
<ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:
On Wed, 07 Oct 2026 04:30:42 -0400, Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote: >>>>
The first couple of episodes almost make you think the show could be
good. It? heightened, to be sure, with violent tonal whiplash and
acting that ranges from excellent to atrocious, but it? relatively
enjoyable and close enough to the novel that the term ?daptation?
feels merited. The third episode goes completely off the rails and
never returns. While television is a collaborative medium and it?
near-impossible to ascribe any credit or blame to one figure, I feel
fairly confident that Ellis is responsible for every good adaptational >>>> choice.
Off-topic, but enquiring minds want to know -- what do the question
marks following the pronouns stand for -- It? he? and so on.
It means that when Ubi plagarized the article, he failed to translate
non-ASCII to ASCII and there was a character set mismatch in copy and
paste.
Yes, I realised that. I just wondered what the non-Ascii character
was.
There are different characters in different places, although both are
due to curly typographers characters:
- the it? occurrences should be it's
- the ?daptation? could be either "adaptation"
or possibly 'adaptation'
Curly quote, curly apostrophes, long hyphens, and characters with
non-English accents (such as the e on the end of cafe) are the usual
culprits. Some newsreaders can post and read the non-ASCII characters properly, while others can't, but they aren't the standard USENET
posting format.
When I copy-paste anything from a website, I usually run it through a
custom TextSoap script to replace those non-ASCII characters with the
standard versions. Sometimes if I'm in a rush I might forget and
sometimes a weird character I don't have in my script and didn't spot
will still sneak through.
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