'Becoming Karl Lagerfeld' is the smart, dishy backstory of a style icon

Transcript

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. In the new TV series "Becoming Karl Lagerfeld," Daniel Bruhl plays the legendary fashion designer back in the 1970s when he was struggling to make his name. Our critic-at-large John Powers has seen the six-part show, which streams on Hulu beginning today. He says the series is vibrantly alive, as smart as it is fun to watch.

JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: We live in an age obsessed with self-creation. Whether it's ordinary people curating their lives on social media or Kim Kardashian turning an absence of talent into a surplus of fame, our culture is less about changing the world than about shaping how the world sees us. Nobody did it any better than Karl Lagerfeld, who died in 2019 after four decades as a lion king in the fashion world. Beginning as a somewhat ridiculous outsider from Germany, Lagerfeld used his genius for self-invention to wind up designing for Fendi, resurrecting the moribund house of Chanel and creating a personal look so distinctive - white hair, dark sunglasses, fingerless gloves and crisp detachable collars - that it could serve as the emoji for fashion designer.

His hard-won rise in '70s Paris is the theme of "Becoming Karl Lagerfeld," a smart, dishy, hugely entertaining new French series on Hulu. The show doesn't pretend to offer the definitive take on an enormously complicated man. Instead, its brisk six episodes offer emblematic incidents, or perhaps pressure points, that take us surprisingly deep inside a figure who moved constantly forward, spurred on by ambition, loneliness and a keen sense of self-protection.

We first meet Karl in Paris through the eyes of Jacques de Bascher, a self-destructive young aristocrat played with scene-stealing charisma by the French Canadian actor Theodore Pellerin. Always looking for distractions, Jacques fixates on the uncharismatic Karl - that's the superb German actor Daniel Bruhl - who at this point is something of a brainy schlub who lives with his acerbic mother and stuffs his face with sweets when he's angry. You know you're watching a French series, not an American one, when in this show's equivalent of a meet-cute Jacques and Karl discover their affinity by quoting the daunting Austrian novelist Robert Musil.

Jacques dreams of being a great writer, but he fritters away his gifts in drink and drugs and sex. He yearns for love. Although Karl cares for him, he's too relentless a work machine to provide such consolations. Karl never stops hustling and scheming. He's chasing a stardom to equal his one-time-friend, now nemesis, Yves Saint Laurent - that's a terrific Arnaud Valois - who's celebrated as a haute couture genius with his own label while Karl toils away on ready-to-wear for the house of Chloe.

Jacques and Karl share a long, tortuous, oddly asexual sort of love. Their relationship becomes the through line of Karl's story, which includes his battles with fashion power broker Pierre Berge, Jacques' disastrous affair with Saint Laurent and Karl's struggles designing a dress for Marlene Dietrich who pointedly asks, do you have a style?

This was always the big question about Lagerfeld, who, like that other self-inventor, David Bowie, tried on many styles and used whichever one would help him get ahead at that moment. In this year's other fashion series, "The New Look," Christian Dior and Coco Chanel felt like animatronic creatures in a diorama. By contrast, "Becoming Karl Lagerfeld" feels urgent and alive, like a present-day story that happens to be set in the past. Whether it's Jacques' desperation, Karl's impacted passion or shocking betrayals like the one in Episode 5, the show pulses with feeling, even wringing genuine poignancy from the pop song "Take On Me."

Without flaunting its seriousness, the show gets you to thinking about the characters, for instance, how the controlled Karl and out-of-control Jacques are complementary halves of a complete human being. And it explores the isolation, even lunacy, lurking inside the quest for fame. Focusing on a brief period of time, "Becoming Karl Lagerfeld" never overtly tries to explain its often contradictory hero. Instead, it lets Bruhl reveal the powerful emotions that flit across Karl's face, even as he attempts to bottle them up. By the end, I felt I understood him surprisingly well and I grasped how he could become a fashion legend.

Now, is the show completely true? Did Dietrich really castigate Karl for a dress he made her? Did Karl really flee when Jacques tried to sleep with him? Who cares? The opening crawl acknowledges that much of the action is fictionalized. Besides, "Becoming Karl Lagerfeld" isn't about the Kennedy assassination or World War II. It's about a fashion designer, one who cultivated his personal mythology and became notorious for his delight in saying reprehensible things. I have no human feelings, Lagerfeld famously told an interviewer. What he'd like least about this show, I suspect, is that it shows he did.

BIANCULLI: John Powers reviewed the new series "Becoming Karl Lagerfeld," which begins streaming today on Hulu. On Monday's show, Griffin Dunne grew up in Beverly Hills where his family would host Hollywood celebrities. That made for entertaining stories. But at the heart of his new memoir, Griffin writes about how the Dunne family overcame significant traumas, including the murder of his sister, Dominique. It's called "The Friday Afternoon Club." I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @NPRFreshAir.

(SOUNDBITE OF ERROLL GARNER'S "SOME OF THESE DAYS")

BIANCULLI: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Al Banks. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.

(SOUNDBITE OF ERROLL GARNER'S "SOME OF THESE DAYS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.