FX’s ‘The Shards’ Shattered An Outstanding Book

Screen adaptations of beloved novels will never adequately compete with the version in the reader’s head. But FX’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s 2025 novel “The Shards” begs the question: did Ryan Murphy even like the book?

Both the novel and the series of the same name follow a fictionalized version of the author in his senior year of high school. Bret, a wealthy and popular teen at an exclusive L.A. prep school, finds his carefully constructed world falling apart as a serial killer stalks the area and a mysterious new student, Robert, seems intent on causing chaos that only Bret notices.

The first couple of episodes almost make you think the show could be good. It’s heightened, to be sure, with violent tonal whiplash and acting that ranges from excellent to atrocious, but it’s relatively enjoyable and close enough to the novel that the term “adaptation” feels merited. The third episode goes completely off the rails and never returns. While television is a collaborative medium and it’s near-impossible to ascribe any credit or blame to one figure, I feel fairly confident that Ellis is responsible for every good adaptational choice.

Once he’s gone, the writing gets shallow, and the momentum craters into meandering, invented diversions with no connection to the novel. Rather than a tight story, the series bloats to focus on cable access dance shows, roller disco, and an adolescent porn star (a bastardization of one of the novel’s best characters, who decidedly did not make adult films on page).

In some ways, Murphy and Ellis’s sensibilities are surprisingly well-suited. Style and surfaces matter intensely in both men’s work. Ryan Murphy has many sins as a creator: often shallow writing, inconsistent casting ranging from outstanding to atrocious, a strange perverted sensibility. But one thing the prolific showrunner truly excels at is visuals.

Both also understand the power of a good needle drop. Ellis weaves the soundtrack of his protagonist’s year throughout the story, with Ultravox’s “Vienna” as a textual leitmotif, and other hits pepper the pages to great effect. The series is less judicious with the music choices, interspersing iconic 1980s classics every few minutes, but when the music is that good it’s hard to be upset.

Where they differ wildly is tone. This is where the gap between the pair becomes astonishingly apparent.

For a book about uber-wealthy teens in the ’80s facing a serial killer, the novel is shockingly grounded. An intriguing ambiguity runs throughout, a moody tone that keeps you at arm’s length while still drawing you in. Narrated by a middle-aged man looking back at his adolescence, there’s a sense of inevitability, a tragedy long-since mourned but never fully recovered. This distance lets the darker elements feel menacing without becoming exploitative.

The series, by contrast, indulges in every gratuity and absurdity. The novel’s implied threats of violence become extended sequences. The nuanced, subtle characters become exposition machines with one-note motivations, aside from the moderately more complex Bret and the intentionally enigmatic Robert. The cool detachment gives way to campy excess, to the show’s detriment.

The show is propped up by a truly excellent leading performance by Igby Rigney as Bret. The series doesn’t deserve what would otherwise be a star-making turn, but as a lover of the novel, I’m thrilled that at least the central character is captured so well.

Rigney is a much-needed saving grace in an otherwise dire cast of 20-somethings posing as adolescents. He has a snarky, cynical, over-it affect, classic for insecure teens pretending sophistication. The narration could get grating, especially with the drop in writing quality after the second episode, but he perfectly captures the tone and character.

Homer Gere is close in his performance as new kid Robert Mallory. He captures the unsettling edge between creepy and charming effectively, but the grosser elements feel forced rather than destabilizing.

In the silent moments or casual conversations, Kaia Gerber’s stunning beauty and magnetism make her almost work as golden-girl Susan Reynolds, but when the script calls for complexity or nuance, her limited acting range shows. When she’s tasked with narration or exposition instead of Rigney, the cool novelistic prose sounds stilted rather than authentic. But she at least brings something to the role, which is more than can be said for Graham Campbell, who sleepwalks his way through a truly atrocious performance as her boyfriend Thom.

Wes Bentley is phenomenal as the film-executive father of Bret’s girlfriend, Debbie (Hayes Warner, clearly having fun and doing her best with the awful material she’s saddled with). His grooming of Bret is grounded predatory, yet charismatic enough to be realistic. He’s wicked without becoming cartoonish, though the novel’s foundation and Bentley’s talent are likely doing the heavy lifting for the ever-weakening writing.

Luca Guadagnino originally had the option for adapting the novel, and I desperately wish we could be treated to his vision. But the best thing about a disappointing adaptation of a great novel is that the book still exists, unsullied and pure. The next time I reread the novel, the show will be far from my mind, meaning nothing to me.

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Paulina Enck is a media specialist in Washington, D.C.