A Nantucket beach wedding seems like the perfect premise for a romance series, but viewers will be shocked to learn that ‘The Perfect Couple’ is actually a show filled with dark secrets, death, and strained family dynamics.
Released on September 5th, ‘The Perfect Couple’ is based on the novel by Elin Hilderbrand and directed by Susanne Bier. The 6 episode limited series on Netflix follows the story of Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson) who is marrying into the wealthy Winbury family. When a shocking death takes place on the eve of her wedding, everyone in the Winbury family is a suspect. While the premise of the story is fantastic, teasing a dissection of class in the face of tragedy, its execution falls short, getting too caught up in soap-opera-like drama at the expense of the actual mystery.
The episodes focus on the police’s investigation into the Windbury family and their friends following the murder, cutting between flashbacks to before the murder, police interogarrations, and present day. As the family is further scrutinized, each members’ secrets are revealed, tearing apart relationships and the reputations of the characters.
Upon watching the first few episodes, it was clear that the story does a really good job of transporting you to the world of Nantucket. The Winbury’s beach house is enviable, and the dynamics of the family are believable.
Headed by their mother, author Greer Garrison Winbury (Nicole Kidman), and wealthy father Tag Winbury (Liev Schreiber), the three Winbury sons each have distinct personalities. Thomas Winbury (Jack Reynor), the morally questionable eldest who is expecting a baby with his wife, Abby Winbury (Dakota Fanning), Benji Winbury (Billy Howle), devoted fiancee to Amelia Sacks, and youngest Will Winbury (Sam Nivola), who’s beginning to understand dark truths about his family.
Despite this long list of characters which also includes friends of the family, Shooter Dival (Ishaan Khatter), and Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy), the series does a good job of balancing each character and giving them a storyline.
Each character is well acted, with Fanning’s performance as Abby and Hewson’s performance as Amelia being standouts. However, Kidman’s performance as Greer is a bit jarring as her Scottish accent sounds suspiciously Australian.
While the acting, setting, and premise are all on point, the actual execution of the story falls flat. While it is common in mystery stories to have red herring plots that don’t play a role in furthering the main plot, ‘The Perfect Couple’ is rife with these subplots, and it gets boring. While they do help characterize the Winbury family as a whole, I was left wondering why many of them were added in the first place, as they seem like filler in an already short series. One red herring storyline in particular has an outcome that does nothing but create pointless relationship drama. While another plot is thoroughly underwhelming, as it changes nothing about our understanding of the character’s motivations.
Although the characters do get ample story time and were well developed, for a mystery series, they are surprisingly predictable. Through the use of clunky dialogue as exposition, the characters’ personalities are spelled out at the beginning of the series, and most characters do exactly what viewers would expect them to do.
‘The Perfect Couple’ cannot be saved from its meandering plot and predictable characters by its premise, setting, and acting. The series falls short of expectations, creating a subpar mystery that doesn’t really have anything to say about class or society as the premise might imply.
I’d recommend it to anyone looking to watch a mystery they don’t have to think too hard about, but not anybody looking to get invested and exhilarated by the story. I’d say ‘Knives Out’ (2019) does a better job of tackling rich families and murder.
6/10
