Here’s a shocker for you: the titular pair in Netflix’s “The Perfect Couple” is not, in fact, perfect. I’m sure your mind is blown. Just like it will be when you come across the show’s radical organizing principle that money does not buy happiness.
Retreading some well-worn ground, Netflix’s prestige murder mystery series cribs heavily from the “White Lotus” model of mixing murder with class conflict to the extent that it even borrows a cast member (the always-compelling Meghann Fahy). And it’s that repetition, on top of the derivative nature of the premise, that makes “The Perfect Couple” far from an ideal watch.
This one opens in Nantucket at an old-money $40 million estate (as one less spectacularly rich character notes) of the Winbury family. They’re so wealthy that only the mother, Nicole Kidman’s Greer Garrison Winbury, appears to work, churning out best-selling murder mysteries every year. She must be making J. K. Rowling-level money to bankroll her husband (who drinks and smokes all day) and their three sons (who, at best are hobbyists) with private jet rides and extravagant parties. The men’s contributions appear to be leading people astray into crypto-investing, spending money on their mistresses, and waiting for their trusts to kick in.
Middle son Benji (an uncanny Billy Howle) is getting married to Amelia (Eve Hewson), an alluring everywoman who serves to point out how different the extremely rich really are. When someone turns up dead the morning after the rehearsal dinner and before the main event, everyone’s a suspect. Queue the music.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with genre shows hitting their beats. The eat-the-rich class farce has been wildly popular lately from the bonkers “Saltburn” to the AI-inflected “A Murder at the End of the World” to the mostly charming “Knives Out.” And like those, this one asks us to ogle the goods of extreme wealth–the beautiful clothes and palatial living quarters, the stunning views and maid service–while also exposing their lifestyles as utterly outlandish. “The Perfect Couple,” for example, does this via a scene where Amelia boards a private jet and clearly feels uncomfortable and out of place.
But the show’s display of riches largely fails to distract or enrich. The house is lovely, yes, but it can’t compete with the natural beauty of the island, a sight available to anyone who can get on the ferry and featured prominently throughout the series via transitional nature shots. The Winbury estate does colonize some of the beauty, privatizing their particular views and stretch of beach. But the end result isn’t envying the house so much as the location–who’s ready for a low-budget tour of New England lighthouses? That is to say, “The Perfect Couple” doesn’t add much of anything to the social-class debate, even in terms of showcasing all the things money can buy.
But that doesn’t mean it’s without merit. Any production that gives Nicole Kidman, Dakota Fanning (Abby, the pregnant wife of the eldest son), Meghann Fahy, Eve Hewson, and Donna Lynne Champlin (the nonplussed detective) such meaty parts has a reason to exist. And it’s mostly the women’s show, although Liev Schreiber as the bored patriarch and Michael Beach as the local (and so potentially compromised) police chief also put in strong performances.
That said, the whodunit part is not so great. All of the richies (and they make up most of the cast) are terrible people. That any one of them could believably commit murder may keep you guessing. But since they’re all so unlikeable, it’s hard to care who’s really guilty of this particular crime–they’re each guilty of plenty. I’d like to say let them all rot in a jail cell, but it seems likely that their money will keep them safe, cocooned in the best legal defense their hefty fortunes can buy.
Then there’s also how the show plays with time, jumping between the night of the murder and the investigation afterward. Flashbacks are par for the course in a show like this but “The Perfect Couple” appears to be purposefully toying with the viewer by not giving enough clues to suss out the correct order of things. There are no captions or changes in lighting to distinguish the timelines. Which makes playing armchair detective along with the characters unnecessarily frustrating.
It’s complication for complication’s sake, basically window dressing for a show that boils down to the idea that rich people are weird. Now there’s still some joy in watching but you’ll have to decide if you like Nicole Kidman enough to spend six hours with these terrible people. I’m thinking there are other things to watch.
Six episodes screened for review. Now on Netflix.
