The producers of The Perfect Couple were so worried that people would mix it up with Big Little Lies, the HBO show also starring Nicole Kidman, that they changed the lead character’s names. Both leading women were called Celeste, so the one in The Perfect Couple became Amelia. Perhaps this should have been a sign to Netflix and HBO that these kinds of shows are virtually indistinguishable. Or perhaps it just shows how little faith producers have in their audience. The Perfect Couple is set on the super-rich haven of Nantucket, where Greer Garrison Winbury (Nicole Kidman) holds court over her family and pretty much the whole island. The Winburys even have the police in their pocket. They’ve got the Winburys to thank for their swanky new cars and uniforms. Is that how American police departments are run? It seems far-fetched to me, but what do I know. Greer is a successful novelist (‘twenty-eight bestsellers!’) and she churns one out every year to keep her expensive operation afloat. Her husband ‘Tag’ does nothing except smoke pot and wax his wooden speedboat. Liev Shreiber is excellent as ‘Tag’. Imposing and enigmatic, he has eyes which twinkle behind designer glasses but you can never quite tell where they’re looking. He’s not handsome but still somehow attractive.
Tag and Greer are hosting their second son’s wedding. Benji is marrying Amelia (Eve Hewson), a voluptuous black-haired beauty from an average family. Benji is deeply in love but is Amelia? Greer doesn’t know, and she lets Amelia know her reservations constantly. It’s almost impossible to imagine such direct confrontations happening in real life, but in The Perfect Couple, they happen all the time. They’re all awful people. Benji’s older brother Thomas mocks and insults everyone. When the wedding is cancelled and someone suggests donating the wedding cake to the people in town, Thomas points out: ‘The last thing poor people need is more sugar.’ He later tries to eat the cake himself, in front of the groom. They fight and get cake all over. Real people don’t ever actually physically fight over cake but I guess this is meant to be a comic moment. The tone is very strange. It’s not sharp enough to be a satire nor funny enough to be a black comedy, so the half-hearted attempts at laughs fall flat. At least Dakota Fanning is having a good time. She plays Thomas’s pregnant wife Abby who is so vain and greedy it’s almost admirable. She doesn’t even mind if her husband is having an affair as long as the money keeps coming. She has expensive facials to pay for.
All these awful people gather at the Winbury home for Benji and Amelia’s wedding. They have a big party the night before which seems to negate the need for an actual wedding reception, and the next morning Amelia’s best friend and maid of honour Merritt is found dead. Massachusetts State police detective Nikki Henry (Donna Lynn Champlin) is called in to help the local department. She’s fantastic. She looks completely normal and completely at odds with the artificially attractive Winburys. The local police are scared of pissing off the Winburys but she doesn’t care. Meanwhile everyone is acting suspiciously. Best man Shooter Dival makes a run for it and is caught trying to leave the island by the police. Greer’s youngest son Will also tries to escape in his dad’s sailing boat but is intercepted by the Coast Guard. He is also in possession of the dead woman’s bracelet. He was obsessed with Merritt, as were a lot of men. Merritt has that effect on them. ‘That’s not a dress she’s wearing, it’s a swimming suit,’ Abby complains to her mother-in-law. This time Abby is right.
Merritt has secrets of her own, and when Amelia discovers them they have a big fight. Then Merritt winds up dead so Amelia feels guilty. Eve Hewson works well as Amelia. This isn’t her first Netflix B-rated thriller she starred in Behind Her Eyes, which was even more far-fetched than this one. Her performance here is much better but not much more can be said for The Perfect Couple. By episode five the family has descended into such a public display of dysfunction that it’s no longer tenable. No one would really act the way they do. This is the show’s main problem. The tension and mystery will only work if characters behave in a way that makes sense. But by the end of the season it’s all just too ridiculous.
Even more annoying is the opening credits which see the whole wedding party dancing in a choregraphed group dance on the beach, Mamma Mia-style, looking happy and wholesome. The dance is now trending on TikTok and even replicated on This Morning. I bet that was planned all along; come up with a dance that’s going to trend and no matter how bad the show is, people will still watch it for the dance. The dance doesn’t belong in this TV series. It undermines the thrust of the drama. But I suppose the producers think that people don’t necessarily want good drama. They think people want to watch famous actors do a silly dance together. If that’s what you’re after, The Perfect Couple is just the thing.
The Perfect Couple is On Netflix
