Critic Reviews

Watching McGregor spew this exquisite venom like a deranged rattlesnake is entertaining enough, and he gets great support from the rest of the cast—particularly the amazing Krysta Rodriguez (Smash), who captures the manic energy of early Halston advocate Liza Minnelli as if she were born into it. But most of the credit has to producer Murphy, who has an unparalleled ability to carve compelling narratives out of tangled, throbbing messes of characters and subplots.

This compelling epic about ego that embeds you in his world of brilliant designs and self-sabotage. It doesn’t hurt that it has a career-best performance from Ewan McGregor as its center.

What makes the whole thing work, start to finish, is McGregor’s huge, bizarre, involved, and inspired turn as Halston. ... Halston is easily Murphy’s best show for Netflix to date.

It argues that Halston’s name was sullied by just how much stuff he put his name to – but it comes at the cost of characterisation. This is only five episodes long, but it takes time to earn viewers’ sympathy for the main character, and it isn’t until the last two episodes that it really gets under his skin.

Like one of its titular character’s own designs, Halston is clean, sleek and beautiful to look at – but you might find yourself wishing it was a little messier around the edges.

Perhaps as things go along, we’ll see more development from these characters. But it may also be that Halston is the only one we see any kind of depth from. And that feels like a missed opportunity. ... McGregor’s performance ties together the flatter characters that are depicted in Halston’s orbit. Despite the broad strokes, five episodes sounds just about right for this series.

The show is trashy fun, but it could have been so much more. White and Murphy could have gone deeper into Halston’s psyche, but all we get are a couple of brief flashbacks to his unhappy childhood.

"Halston" doesn't merit the kind of adulation that its namesake craved, but strictly in terms of garnering attention, combining a marquee star with juicy material is one of those things that never goes out of style.

Despite telling the kind of tormented-creative-genius story we’ve seen in many a Hollywood biopic, complete with crass moralising about the dangers of an indulgent lifestyle, this latest Ryan Murphy concoction eventually manages to get under the skin.

One can’t help wondering whether a mini series about his relationship with Liza Minnelli (who refused to talk ill of her friend in the 2019 documentary and clearly loved him as much – or more – than any of her husbands) would have been a far more moving and emotional TV drama than this fun but forgettable Halston turns out to be.