“I tried watching Succession,” says Armie Hammer’s aunt Casey, somewhere near the halfway point of House of Hammer (Discovery+). “I had to turn it off … Magnify Succession a million times and it was literally my family.” This, it turns out, is not hyperbole.
The career of Armie Hammer, star of The Social Network and Call Me By Your Name, ended virtually overnight last year, when the internet lit up with rumours (all of which he denies) of emotional and physical abuse. A direct accusation of rape followed, for which Hammer was investigated but not charged. Three-part documentary series House of Hammer recaps this sorry story then goes further, showing the disgraced actor to be the product of extraordinarily toxic privilege, and pitching his downfall as a battle for the ages: the corrosive influence of old money versus the untameable power of new media.
