A nimble, even-paced and deliciously twisted whodunnit that takes on board a complete advanced of themes – extreme household dysfunction, class snobbery, harmful liaisons, long-buried secrets and techniques that sow deep mistrust and complexities of policing a city the place the wealthy wield inordinate energy – The Excellent Couple, starring Nicole Kidman, Reside Schreiber and Ishaan Khatter (in a major function that he does full justice to), is a near-perfect mix of intrigue, suspense and crimson herrings.
Riveting from the phrase go, showrunner and author Jenna Lamia’s adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s bestselling novel of the identical title doesn’t slacken one bit because it zigzags by means of the numerous twists and turns that observe within the wake of the invention of a dull physique on the seaside on the morning of a high-society marriage ceremony on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts.
It’s the Fourth of July weekend and the household is all set to tug out the stops when they’re stopped of their tracks by what the Nantucket police suspect is a case of homicide and never a mere accident, as just a few of the revellers would have the world consider.
The core of the Netflix collection is harking back to Huge Little Lies, 9 Excellent Strangers (each starring Nicole Kidman and set in a Californian city) and The White Lotus however The Excellent Couple is, firmly and absolutely, its personal beast.
Apart from not being a boilerplate affair, it’s fleet-footed sufficient to not be weighed, or slowed, down by an exceptionally busy plot that will get progressively intricate by the point the sixth and last episode, at 63 minutes the longest of the lot, begins.
Director Susanne Bier has a confirmed monitor document of dissecting the actions of flawed individuals in an imperfect world and unveiling the numerous psychological imponderables of human behaviour. She brings all her acumen into play in fleshing out the residents of a seaside summer season mansion, their lovers, associates and foes, and their particular person and collective shenanigans and fixations.
The right couple of the title are something however a pair that anyone ought to emulate. Tremendous-successful homicide thriller author Greer Garrison Winbury (Kidman) has 28 bestsellers and 29 uneven years of marriage underneath her belt. She is a cynical management freak who has a lot to cover. And so does her husband, the Tag Winbury (Reside Schreiber), who by no means misses a possibility to claim he nonetheless loves his spouse greater than anyone or the rest on the planet.
Their flashy way of life is funded as a lot by the wealth that Greer’s books have generated as by the household wealth the Winburys have had for a number of generations. That permits Greer’s life accomplice and three sons the luxurious of not having to ever fear about the place their subsequent million greenback goes to come back from.
The opening episode of the collection kicks off with the pre-party of the marriage of Greer’s son, Benji (Billy Howle), and the far much less prosperous Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson), a zookeeper from Easton, Pennsylvania who, within the snooty novelist’s eye, an outsider the Winburys could be higher off with out.
One of the best man and the groom’s good friend from his college days, Shooter Dival (Khatter), arrives effectively in time for the occasion, however the maid of honour, Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy, who was in The White Lotus, too), a girl of infectious effervescence who immediately makes her presence felt within the gathering, is a tad delayed.
Each visitors – Shooter has a particular bond with Greer – have an effect on how issues end up over the subsequent few days for the Winburys and the regulation enforcers of Nantucket.
Hours after the wedding-eve bash winds up, a physique is found on the seaside. The nuptials are referred to as off. The native police, led by Chief Dan Carter (Michael Seashore), and Detective Nikki Henry (performed brilliantly by Donna Lynne Champlin, who steals all people’s thunder now and again all by means of the six-episode drama collection), start their investigation. All people within the household and round it’s a suspect and a possible witness.
That is, in essence, acquainted territory – Greer tells a tv interviewer that she as soon as had “an Agatha Christie obsession” – however The Excellent Couple has characters and conditions that take the story in instructions that befuddle as a lot as they appear completely believable given the world that
the Winburys inhabit and the fictional universe that Greer derives nice mileage from.
Greer is a public determine fiercely protecting of the picture of her household, marriage and way of life she desires to undertaking. No Winbury, particularly a woman marrying into the household, has the choice to defy the foundations that she units. Abby learns to reside with that actuality however Amelia recoils in bewilderment on the suggestion she can’t converse her thoughts and do her coronary heart’s bidding.
Among the twists in The Excellent Couple could really feel a tad contrived and arbitrary, however The Excellent Couple by no means stops springing surprises. It doesn’t fall right into a sample of predictability though the fast succession of incidents and revelations – supplied principally by means of solutions that the suspects and witnesses present to questions requested throughout police interrogation – prepares the viewers to not take something at face worth.
All people in The Excellent Couple has points with one another and never a lot with the remainder of the world, which they’ve the means to close out from their line of imaginative and prescient when they need. Greer’s eldest son Thomas (Jack Reynor), his pregnant spouse Abby (Dakota Fanning), who can sense the hostility that Amelia provokes within the class-conscious Greer, and youngest Winbury sibling, Will (Sam Nivola), continuously grapple with enervating, if not outright malefic, forces at work round them.
The opulent cottage of the Winburys in Nuntucket is known as Summerland. However there may be everlasting winter in there what the frosty vibes go round and the darkish and soiled secrets and techniques that lurk in each nook and cranny of a house that’s extra a jail than a refuge.
The actors, led by Kidman, are all of their components, with the script and the directorial interventions set simply the best stage for them to deliver the characters and their foibles alive. Schreiber is terrific as one half of “the proper couple”. Hewson holds her personal because the unwilling disruptor who units the cat the among the many pigeons within the Winbury family. The plot offers Ishaan Khatter the scope to face out within the crowd. He makes essentially the most of it.
Bingeworthy all the way in which.
