Current:Home > BackReview: 'The Perfect Couple' is Netflix's dumbed-down 'White Lotus'-DB Wealth Institute B2 Expert Reviews
Review: 'The Perfect Couple' is Netflix's dumbed-down 'White Lotus'
View Date:2024-12-23 22:14:50
You know exactly what you're getting when you sit down to watch "The Perfect Couple."
Netflix's latest limited series has a seemingly, ahem, perfect recipe: Beautiful Nantucket beaches, an attractive young cast; a frothy 2018 Elin Hilderbrand novel as its source material; a mysterious death to investigate; terrible rich people to boo; and Nicole Kidman with a bad wig. It's going for "Big Little Lies" on the East Coast, or maybe "White Lotus" for New England WASPs. Or perhaps it's "The Undoing" with brighter lighting. Whatever it is, it certainly aspires to be the kind of addictive, soapy, whodunit drama akin to these successful series that have taken over the zeitgeist over the past few years.
"Perfect Couple" (now streaming, ★★½ out of four) feels like it's made from a bunch of pieces of different series, and it's quite telling. The series is a bit of a mishmash and at times, a very unfocused story that would probably have been better off with fewer episodes, or just a movie with all the excess fluff trimmed out. Too many modern TV series waste viewers' time; they're frustrating "slow burns" that take forever to get to the good stuff if there's any good stuff at all. "Couple," by contrast, is good at its start and fantastic at the end but drags painfully between, a fluffy doughnut with bland filling.
But it's still a doughnut: Chewy, gooey and fun.
"Couple" takes place at a picturesque Nantucket mansion owned by the blue-blooded Winbury family, led by its ice-cold matriarch and bestselling author Greer (Kidman) and weed-smoking layabout patriarch Tag (Liev Schreiber). They're hosting a blowout wedding for their son Benji (Billy Howle) and his very middle-class fiancé Amelia (Eve Hewson of Apple's excellent "Bad Sisters"). But the seaside soiree is interrupted when a body is discovered on the beach. Now all the dirty little secrets of this seemingly perfect family (filled with perfect-looking couples) come out into the open.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
The cast is worth far more than the material they're given, including "Lotus" alum (and Emmy nominee) Meghann Fahy as the party-girl maid of honor and Dakota Fanning as an unambiguously awful future sister-in-law to the bride. Fanning at times appears to be the only one who realizes what kind of series she's in, and her unserious mean-girl vibe is a delectable treat. You'll love to hate her and hate to love her for her snide comments and the time she takes a lick from someone else's wedding cake.
Without revealing who died or how (at Netflix's request), it's hard to talk about the plot other than to say it often makes little sense. A slew of disparate threads that might relate to the central mystery but are quickly resolved. There aren't enough red herrings to make it a whodunit that begs the audience to guess the killer (if there is one). Plus it is extremely frustrating that the procedural elements move at a glacial pace, from the police looking up things as simple as phone records all the way in Episode 5 to the press being uninterested in a mysterious death on the property of a famous and wealthy family until weeks later.
Still, the ending is juicy and genuinely surprising, part of a finale episode that is rollicking good time. If only its melodramatic, borderline ridiculous tone could have been replicated in each of the installments. It's clear that creator Susanne Bier ("The Undoing") attempted it, down to the opening credits that feature the cast in a choreographed dance to "Criminals" by Meghan Trainor. It's practically begging for a TikTok trend (if the kids don't deem it too "cringe").
Hilderbrand is known for her quick and satisfying "beach reads," and "Couple" might have been better served if it had been released over a lazy hot summer weekend when binge-watching six hours of an OK-bordering-on-good show seemed like the best use of time. During a busy September with dozens of new and returning series vying for our attention, it might not feel worth it.
After all, nothing is really perfect.
veryGood! (68)
Related
- Advance Auto Parts is closing hundreds of stores in an effort to turn its business around
- Katy Perry dodges question about Dr. Luke after online backlash amid Kesha claims
- Half a house for half a million dollars: Home crushed by tree hits market near Los Angeles
- Daniel Craig opens up about filming explicit gay sex scenes in new movie 'Queer'
- 2025 NFL Draft order: Updated first round picks after Week 10 games
- Olympian Stephen Nedoroscik Shares How His Girlfriend Is Supporting Him Through Dancing With The Stars
- Debate Flares Over Texas’ Proposed Oil and Gas Waste Rule
- A list of mass killings in the United States this year
- Gerry Faust, former Notre Dame football coach, dies at 89
- California companies wrote their own gig worker law. Now no one is enforcing it
Ranking
- Relive Pregnant Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly's Achingly Beautiful Romance
- California settles lawsuit with Sacramento suburb over affordable housing project
- Noel Parmentel Jr., a literary gadfly with some famous friends, dies at 98
- Jimmy McCain, a son of the late Arizona senator, registers as a Democrat and backs Harris
- Oprah Winfrey denies being paid $1M for Kamala Harris rally: 'I was not paid a dime'
- Website offers $1,000 for a 'Pumpkin Spice Pundit' to taste-test Trader Joe's fall items
- Save Up to 74% on Pants at Old Navy: $8 Shorts, $9 Leggings & More Bestsellers on Sale for a Limited Time
- A transgender teen in Massachusetts says other high schoolers beat him at a party
Recommendation
-
NFL Week 10 injury report: Live updates on active, inactive players for Sunday's games
-
Ina Garten Says Her Father Was Physically Abusive
-
Queen guitarist Brian May suffered minor stroke, lost 'control' in his arm
-
Panic on the streets of Paris for Australian Olympic breaker
-
Amazon Best Books of 2024 revealed: Top 10 span genres but all 'make you feel deeply'
-
When do new 'Selling Sunset' episodes come out? Season 8 release date, cast, where to watch
-
Led by Caitlin Clark, Kelsey Mitchell, Indiana Fever clinch first playoff berth since 2016
-
Power outages could last weeks in affluent SoCal city plagued by landslides