Oh what a wicked web we weave….
TV loves a good dysfunctional family. Even better if they are cashed up to the eyeballs and horrible people, tearing themselves apart in a luxurious TV setting.
Welcome to The Perfect Couple, Netflix’s new 6 part murder mystery set on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts.
It’s here we find novelist Greer Winbury (Nicole Kidman) and playboy husband Tag (Liev Schreiber) on their sprawling Cape Cod estate. This is Revenge on an uber-budget, a house straight from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
The series opens at a rehearsal -apparently- for the wedding of son Benji (Billy Howle) to Amelia (Eve Hewson). I say apparently because there is so much money, booze, gowns, and time invested in this catered event that everybody would have hangovers the next day and nobody would be gettting married. But I digress.
The family also includes eldest brother Thomas (Jack Reynor), his spoiled wife Abby (Dakota Fanning) and frisky younger brother Will (Sam Nivola). The players include maid of honour Merritt (Meghann Fahy), best man Shooter (Ishaan Khatter), family friend Isabel (Isabelle Adjani) and the see-all maid Gosia (Irina Dubova).
But when someone winds up dead in the shallows, into the scene arrives the gloriously droll Detective Nikki (Donna Lynne Champlin) with local police chief Dan (Michael Beach).
It’s a major spoiler to reveal just who dies but it is one of the many twists and turns in this excessive series by screenwriter Jenna Lamia and director Susanne Bier.
There are numerous flashbacks (some of which can be confusing) as new information is revealed to the audience. Lies are prevalent, fidelity is negotiable, but it all makes for delicious fun.
Nicole Kidman, complete with some sort of feigned British accent to reflect her character’s trajectory, is icily brilliant as Greer. All the kids are afraid of her and struggle to live up to her ideals, while Tag is torn by a push-pull desire for her, whilst shrinking in the shadow of her career. Schrieber is nowhere near as good as Ray Donovan, but who cares? They are the (im)perfect couple of the ironic title…
Donna Lynne Champlin as Detective Nikki disrupts the privilege with which this family misbehaves, given some of the drama’s best lines.
Nothing about this soapy diversion matches the maturity of Kidman’s earlier success with Big Little Lies. But it is shamelessly entertaining. Trash TV at its exquisite best.
And there’s nothing so wrong with that if it never seeks to rise above its station.
The Perfect Couple is now screening on Netflix.
links to content on ABC
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