Ryan Murphy's 'All’s Fair' Is Surrealist Art

The flutes—present in what feels like every scene of this landmark piece of art house film (now streaming on Hulu)—lends the whole affair a consistent dreamlike quality. We’re at a meeting? Champagne. We’re breaking up with our husband? Champagne. A plane ride? Champagne. In fact, the whole show feels like an extended montage of divas clinking glasses after slaying patriarchy.

Most shows have scenes and storylines; All’s Fair has toasts.

This is all, to be clear, a positive. This show is equal parts Twitter reaction video, Selling Sunset interstitial visual and something you’d see at a Liberal Arts experimental theatre program. I’d say this was gay cat nip, but it’s actually a new sedative only known in the most underground corners of people who tweet about Berlin.

It is also, I suppose, a show about high powered female divorce attorneys. But the notion of “plot” is vague with this ambient assemblage of sights and sounds. (Like with most Ryan Murphy offerings.)

There has been much hay made of Kim Kardashian’s non-acting acting as star attorney Allura Grant. Her “performance” truly is a sight. But any true Kardashian-head will know that seeing Kim be frozen is like listening to ocean wave noises; it evokes an eternal, bone-deep knowing.

The real thrill of this show is watching Kim give Kim while playing off the likes of Oscar-nominated actress Glenn Close, or a once again Lynchian Naomi Watts or the powerhouse that is Niecy Nash (“Pin your wig down, Allura” she says to a wide eyed Kim, becoming instant canon). At one point, Sarah Paulson, who plays the gals’ nemesis, answers the phone by referring to Allura as a certain kind of towel.

In fact, Paulson, whose vendetta against the divas stems from them leaving her to wallow away in a misogynistic, dreary law firm, may just be the star jewel of this teeming crown. Every line she says could have also been uttered by one Ru Paul. And she delivers it all in a sort of cooing Mid-Atlantic accent.

Contemporary life in our time of AI slop and generally unhinged behavior genuinely feels as nonsensical and loosely held together as the series of music videos and gifs that is this show. So yes, I get a lot of the “pans” I’m seeing online; I truly am not one to excuse poor quality in the name of camp. But here I am excusing poor quality in the name of surrealism.

Image via Getty