After analyzing the figure of OJ Simpson and the long trial that saw him as the murderer of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her partner, and the controversial murder of the well-known Italian designer Gianni Versace, the famous anthological series of FX returns with a new and highly anticipated season protagonist of our review, American Crime Story: Impeachment. The latter focuses on the Sexgate, that is the sex scandal that hit the president of the United States of America Bill Clinton during his second term. It was 1998 when Clinton was subjected to impeachment for perjury and obstruction of justice after having sworn, during a trial on the alleged sexual harassment of the journalist Paula Jones, that he had never had relations with the young intern. Monica Lewinsky.
And it was Monica Lewinsky, after an initial reluctance to participate in the project, who made her fundamental contribution to the reconstruction, becoming one of the main producers of this season. The series is written and directed by Sarah Burgess and is based on the book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President by Jeffrey Toobi, who focuses not only on the relationship between the two but, above all, on the potential plot circulating around the whole affair. American Crime Story: Impeachment will consist of ten episodes, airing from October 19, 2021 on the Fox satellite channel, and here is ours review of the first episode, “Exiles“.
American Crime Story: Impeachment, the scandal that shook America
As we have already anticipated at the opening of the review, American Crime Story: Impeachment focuses on Sexgate, the 1998 scandal that saw the president of the United States of America as the protagonist Bill Clinton and shook the whole country. To over twenty years away from the story the story re-emerges and arrives on the small screen, showing the public the background of one of the events that most marked the solid walls of the White House and that divided American society. The Sexgate, or Monicagate, has already been analyzed with minutia and morbidity in a large number of films, television series and documentaries, but it is evident that on this occasion FX tried to do something profoundly different, going beyond the intimate details between the two to show a picture larger overall e business suit.
For this reason, from the very first minutes of this episode, we are faced with a great deal of information to be assimilated, between names, places and many time jumps. In order to tell the story in its entirety, American Crime Story: Impeachment travels rapidly from 1991 to 2001, recounting all the stages of a long and tedious journey, starting precisely with the crucial events that took place at the beginning of the 90s. Unlike the first season, in which viewers were immediately drawn into the more dramatic stages of the OJ Simpson trial, the latter moves more slowly and analyzes with extreme calm (perhaps too much for the moment) the elements that have led to a scandal of this magnitude.
The central part of the narrative, in fact, opens in 1993, the day on which the deputy adviser of the White House Vince Foster (Matthew Floyd Miller) greets Linda Tripp, a secretary in his Washington office, and drives alone in a Virginia national park, where he shoots himself in the head with a vintage revolver. The tragic suicide of Foster was one of the most important elements of the whole story, considering that it was the latter that fueled the disenchantment of Linda Tripp (here masterfully interpreted by a practically unrecognizable Sarah Paulson) against the Clinton administration, then bringing it, on January 12, 1998, to a betray the trust of her friend and colleague Monica Lewinsky, effectively setting in motion the events that subsequently led to theimpeachment of the president.
Rather than focusing on Clinton, American Crime Story: Impeachment puts the little one at the center of the story group of women whose figures are irremediably linked to the history of the White House, from Linda Tripp to Monica Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein) herself, giving us a new and decidedly unexpected point of view of events. To these is also added Paula Jones (Annaleigh Ashford) who, in May 1994, filed a lawsuit against President Bill Clinton, claiming to have been the victim of sexual harassment when he was still governor of Arkansas. In this regard, the series delves deeply into the emotionality of the character, highlighting a reality that, sadly, is very current today again. Paula’s trial is marked by a deep anguish and uneasiness in which the woman finds herself on the warpath without having great trials to appeal to and, above all, in which she does not feel quite ready to end up under the merciless eyes of the press and of the public, ready to devour her at any moment.
A story that must be told one step at a time
As we mentioned earlier in the review, American Crime Story: Impeachment you allow yourself time to explore with care every part of the story, pausing to deepen all that succession of events that, from 1991 onwards, led Linda Tripp to betray Monica Lewinsky’s trust, taking advantage of the path already trodden by Paula Jones to inflict a severe blow to the Clinton administration, and thus kicking off the first impeachment trial in over a century of a current US president. Though necessary, as it begins to lay the groundwork for the series of events that will later lead to the scandal, this episode moves with perhaps too slow, leaving behind the rhythm engaging that had characterized the other two seasons of the show.
A questionable choice, perhaps, for a pilot that at the moment just stays on track and proves to be still undecided about what kind of final product to show us. What seems like an accurate historical reconstruction is abruptly interrupted by decidedly out of place moments which, also thanks to the large number of time jumps present in the episode, fails to fully convince as regards the pace, fluctuating and uninvolving. It must also be said that we are only at the beginning of a long and eventful story and, only at the end of this episode we begin to get closer to Bill Clinton (here played by Clive Owen) and the more morbid details of his relationship. with the young Monica Lewinsky. Are we facing the calm that precedes the storm? Considering the numerous lapels this is probable and, from this point of view, the series begins to successfully lay the foundations for a story that has all the papers in order to capture the attention of viewers.