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Shattered Glass

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SHATTERED GLASS

An Autopsy of the Twitter-Ravaged Remains of Liz & Dick

By Molly Lambert and Emily Yoshida at
Jack Zeman

Like everyone else with an Internet connection and a soft spot for Lindsay Lohan, Grantland staffers Molly Lambert and Emily Yoshida watched the Lifetime Original Movie Liz & Dick this weekend. Like everyone else, they were left alternately baffled and annoyed, and definitely with more questions than answers.

Molly Lambert: Where to begin? There's so much to unpack from this crate of first editions on the deck of a yacht. I can't think of another TV movie in recent memory that's captured the public imagination like Liz & Dick. In a lot of ways it totally delivered. Lindsay was better than I expected, but that's the upside of low expectations and good retro styling. It's a thin line between camp and contempt for the conventions of realism posing as camp (cough, Ryan Murphy), but I felt oddly moved by the end. I got sucked into wondering how factual it was. The Taylor-Burton relationship felt overall more toxic than passionate. Burton was a master of the Welsh neg.

Emily Yoshida: You're not alone in having your curiosity piqued despite the horrific trappings. As one of my fellow viewers said after the credits had rolled, "Well, I'll definitely have to Wikipedia their relationship now." We learn basically nothing.

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