Netflix: “The Perfect Couple” starring Liev Schreiber and Nicole Kidman
If you’re going to do a series about the super-rich, do it with some style and wit like “Succession”—and not like “The Perfect Couple,” the recent Netflix series.
Liev Schreiber and Nicole (“we come to the movies for magic”) Kidman play the super-wealthy Winberrys: he’s Tag, a layabout with tons of family money; she’s Greer, a hard-charging best-selling novelist.
The couple is hosting a wedding party on their Nantucket beachfront estate for their middle son Benji (a well-cast Billy Howie) who is to be married to middle-class Amelia (Eve Hewson). Their other two sons include Thomas (Jack Reiner), the philandering husband of pregnant Abby (Dakota Fanning). Their youngest son Will (Sam Nicola) is dating Chloe (Mia Isaac), the daughter of the local police chief Carter (Michael Beach). A lot of cross-caste romancing here.
On the morning of the wedding, the body of Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahey), Amanda’s bestie and maid of honor is found washed upon the beach. Did she simply drown, after too many drinks and pills? Or was it a murder? Nikki Henry (Donna Lynn Champlain), a bossy off-island detective, is determined to find out.
She eventually calls everyone down to the station house for questioning, including hunky Shooter Duvall (Ishaan Katter), Benji’s bestie; and Isabel, a French nymphomaniac (played by the once great but now terrible Isabelle Adjani).
The moral of this story seems to be that we shouldn’t envy the material wealth we’re seeing, given the serious problems that accompany it here. Maybe. But “Couple” also shows that bad dialogue, nonsensical plotting, and characters with names like Shooter can clearly get in the way of any such message. (Note: the six-episode series is based on the novel by Elin Hildebrand, who now tops my no-read list.)