‘The Tailor’ Review: The Throes of the Fashion World

Turkey keeps pumping up content for Netflix, and The Tailor is just the latest TV series to arrive on the streaming service from that country. The seven-episode TV series goes fast and transport the audience into the world of high fashion, following the footsteps of a very famous designer. The Tailor manages to mix an interesting exploration of this secret world with huge amounts of melodrama. It will all depend on your level of resistance when it comes to dealing with a lot of crying and a hyperbolic musical score that screams tragedy at every second.

The Tailor is a Turkish TV series created by Onur Güvenatam for Netflix. The series stars Çagatay Ulusoy, Sifanur Gül, Salih Bademci, and Olgun Simsek. The series tells us the story of Peyami, a famous fashion designer who has to learn to balance his professional life and all the responsibilities that his work brings, along with issues in his personal life, to be more specific, family problems, as he has to deal with insane family decisions and having to take care of his mentally disabled father.

The Tailor is quite a strange show. It certainly has an essence that can only be described as coming from its country of origin. That essentially makes the show unique. Netflix has truly become a window to other cultures. Learning new customs and traditions through the many series they produce and acquire from around the world is fascinating. The Tailor offers some of that by depicting some very strange family dynamics, at least for those who live in America. Maybe, this is not normal in Turkey either, but the entire situation makes the show stand out.

The series can be described as a full melodrama. All the characters have chosen to leave nuance and subtlety behind, and instead, they have chosen to do everything at maximum volume. It seems like in each scene. The characters are expressing their feelings in the loudest possible way. Even when they are trying to cover those emotions, they are so strong that you can see the characters having spasms as they walk around a room. This type of characterization isn’t often seen in TV series outside of soap operas, at least in American television.

So, we can definitely say that, more than anything, The Tailor fits into the soap opera frame almost perfectly. This could detract from the audience, as soap operas have a specific target audience. The medium of soap operas has definitely been treated badly in the past, and still, nowadays, it is seen as a lesser form of storytelling. Most of the tropes and storylines used in soap operas are indeed to cliché, the acting is often bad, and the film language is sloppy and raw, but there is beauty in seeing something being made so fast and cheaply.

However, The Tailor doesn’t seem to have the cheapness of a soap opera. So, in retrospect, it is strange that while many aspects of the production are being taken care of at a high level, the acting and storytelling do fall right to the soap opera level. The Tailor will definitely find its audience, but this TV series is far from being a prestige TV series. Netflix has chosen to be in the market for cheap and fast TV shows as of late. The Tailor avoids looking cheap and sloppy, but the storytelling isn’t refined enough to warrant a mandatory watch.

When it comes to the performances, all the actors are doing a great job. Çagatay Ulusoy is a very solid protagonist. He plays the character of Peyami with conviction, and you can feel the character’s desperation in every single sequence. Sifanur Gül is also a standout. The actress is not only incredibly beautiful, but she manages to convey all manners of emotion throughout a very solid performance that asks a lot from her in almost every single aspect.

On the other hand, they are two other performances that don’t bode that well. Salih Bedemci, who plays the villain of the hour, comes across as too over the top. Of course, this is not only the fault of the actor but also of the directional side of the performance. The character seems to have come from a cartoon and feels completely unbelievable. We are indeed despicable human beings in this world, but Bedemci’s performance is just unhinged. It becomes increasingly unbelievable to see him as a working character in this world every time he appears on-screen.

The same applies to Olgun Simsek’s performance as Mustafa, Peyami’s father. The actor’s entire performance brought me back to the time when I saw Tropic Thunder for the first time. During this movie, Robert Downey Jr’s character tells Ben Stiller’s character that his previous movie was a failure because he went too much into the “mentally disabled” parts of the role. He went so much into these aspects that, at some point, the performance lost meaning and became more of a joke. Simsek’s performance becomes a joke very early on and is not funny.

In the end. The Tailor feels more like a traditional soap opera than a traditional Netflix TV series. The production values are quite solid for a TV series of its kind, but the storylines are too cliché. The contrast between the storylines and the performances is almost seamless, with the actors going for maximal delivery in each line and action. Ulusoy and Gül come across as excellent leads, and if the show was only about them, it would have been excellent, but more sloppy performances hinder the show more than they should.

The Tailor is not for everyone, but if you like melodrama and are ready to see over-the-top acting and storylines, this might be the show for you. Be aware that one of the performances could be taken as offensive and that there are better things to watch on Netflix alone. Go watch the most recent Rough Diamonds if you want a family drama that is easier and more clever in its writing.

SCORE: 6/10