Alberto Rey
Updated Sunday, February 18, 2024-9:50 p.m.
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My idea was to write about
Cristóbal Balenciaga
and
The New Look
at the same time. Put the Spanish
Disney+
series next to the North American
Apple TV+ series
. Before watching them, I had no idea which one would be best, or even if they would both be good.
Cristóbal Balenciaga
is;
The New Look
, no. All its cast, all its budget and, above all, all its expectations, for nothing.
Maybe I should have been a little smarter and taken into account that
The New Look
is headed by
Todd A. Kessler
, creator of
Damages
and
Bloodline
. The first started out as a really good series and, although it also ended that way, in some of its seasons it was a deranged and a bit ridiculous delirium. The second is another of those "false good series" with which
Netflix
tried to make us believe that it was concerned about the quality of its content.
Ben Mendelsohn
was one of the protagonists of
Bloodline
, a series for which he won an Emmy in 2016. He is now at the helm of
The New Look
, playing
Christian Dior
. This is just one of the star/icon combos that
Todd A. Kessler
proposes:
Nuno Lopes
is
Cristóbal Balenciaga
,
Glenn Close
is
Carmel Snow
and
Juliette Binoche
is
Coco Chanel
. Also circulating in
The New Look
are John Malkovich
,
Maisie Williams
,
Emily Mortimere
and
Claes Bang
, who plays
Spatz ,
Chanel
's lover
and one of the most interesting characters in the legendary designer's biography.
Directly like this, “mythical French designer”, Coco
from
The New Look
is about to be defined
.
Juliette Binoche
's performance
is a total embarrassment. The French actress's proposal seems to want to boycott the series.
Anouk Grinberg
, the
Chanel
of
Cristóbal Balenciaga
, does a much better job. He also has a better script to fall back on. What
Todd A. Kessler
offers Binoche
is
so
uninteresting that it even makes sense that the actress tried to show off. She doesn't get it. Nothing comes out.
It is very likely that
The New Look
is not as bad as I have conveyed in the previous paragraphs. At the end of the day, it's still a mediocre
Downton Abbey
with famous names and Nazis. That always works. But with the cast, the theme and the budget that this series manages, it is inevitable that it will generate enormous expectations. Who doesn't want to see a blockbuster with Dior, Chanel, Paris and Nazis? Who doesn't want to see Juliette Binoche, Glenn Close and John Malkovich win every award in the world? What could go wrong in
The New Look
? Well everything.
In
The New Look
, as
Coco Chanel
would say , almost everything is a
joke
. Said with a French accent speaking English with a French accent that she doesn't really have.
Chanel
said of
Balenciaga
that she was the only
authentic
couturier , that the others (including her) were mere designers.
Cristóbal Balenciaga
, the series, is haute couture.
The New Look
is a poorly sewn sweatshirt with the logo of an expensive brand printed in gold. Don't buy it.