‘The Perfect Couple’ REVIEW: A Netflix series with everything we love about scandals
‘The Perfect Couple’ REVIEW: A Netflix series with everything we love about scandals
Susanne Bier’s Netflix murder mystery The Perfect Couple keeps its audience hooked throughout an investigation that spans across six episodes. It begins with the bride Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson) moments away from marrying into one of the richest families of Nantucket, until a dead body wipes along the shore of the beach where the wedding is taking place. In an instant, everyone at the wedding becomes a suspect in an investigation that brings out the absolute worst in their characters.
Everyone is immediately prohibited from leaving the island until the investigation is closed. This plot then emphasizes how much this elite group cares only about themselves, complaining about how this investigation affects their personal lives and never questioning the other stakeholders at hand. We’re meant to dislike this family and not sympathize with any of their accounts throughout the investigation, leading the series to focus less on drama and more on satire and dark comedy, making it unique from most fictional murder mysteries already. This is complimented with an impeccable cast including the likes of Nicole Kidman playing the snobbish mother-in-law Greer Garrison Winbury.
Specifically Kidman’s performance stood out because of how well she portrayed the snobbish matriarch character. As much as her passive aggressive comments and snide remarks can be credited to the script, she added more depth to her character with creative decisions as simple as taking an extra second to pause before delivering a line — which influenced the meaning of what she was saying in each line of dialogue. Given the nature of investigations as well, we get to learn things about her character that would’ve made us sympathize with her if she were anyone else, but the control she had over her tone ensures we don’t.
What is most laudable about this series, however, is how difficult it is to find the culprit. You might find yourself suspicious of a character in one episode and become suspicious of another in the next, or want to suspect a character but hesitate because it would just be too obvious.
The mystery of this series is more than enough to keep you watching, but in moments where you might start to become less interested, the dark satirical humor hooks you back in — because when this family isn’t being investigated, they’re planning something diabolical that won’t make any of their situations better. We don’t actually care about what happens to these rich people, but that’s exactly why their scandal becomes so entertaining to binge.
The Perfect Couple is now streaming on Netflix.
