The Perfect Couple - 10 Burning Questions
The Perfect Couple - 10 Burning Questions
New Netflix show has a wonderful cast, beautiful production values and more plot holes than a 30 year old fishing net.
MAJOR SPOILER ALERT - there are major spoilers in this post. So if you haven’t seen the show and you want to then check back afterwards. If you don’t want to see the show then just read the article and you won’t have to - but give it a go anyway!
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We’ve all been there. It’s Thursday night and you just finished your latest streamed drama series yesterday. Apple TV’s Slow Horses doesn’t have a new episode until next Wednesday and you’re not in the mood for ANOTHER true crime documentary or fantasy epic but you need something to watch today. Oh look! Nicole Kidman is playing a wealthy, entitled woman in a drama about rich people and it’s only in six parts - let’s give it a go.
The Perfect Couple on Netflix is based on the eponymous novel by Elon Hildebrand. It is set, like most of the writer’s work, on the island of Nantucket which is an enclave and summer retreat for billionaires. Hildebrand’s novels have been described as ‘beach books’ which seems to be working for the author because she has sold 20 million more copies of her work than I have. I have yet to sell a book.
The show is beautifully shot and aside from La Kidman (who just gets better), there is an incredible cast including Eve Hewson, Liev Schreiber, Dakota Fanning and a way out there Isabelle Adjani as a character called Isabelle. (more about her later,)
Kidman plays Greer Garrison Winbury, a wildly successful novelist who writes romantic stories that appeal to a specific demographic. She is married to Tag Winbury who is from very old money and does nothing all day except smoke joints, drink and go to bed with women 40 years his junior. Greer also appears to be a huge snob, cold as ice and scheming although later on she turns out to be warm hearted, generous and forgiving. None of her character traits make sense until near the end when we discover her true origins and how she came to meet her husband.
The show starts with a wedding about to take place at the huge Garrison summer residence in Nantucket. We are welcomed to the beach side rehearsal dinner which is where guests practise eating the food they will be served the next day. Despite the main building’s size some of the guests are housed in cottages in the grounds - none of which have adequate locks. The groom is Benji (Greer’s son) and the bride is Amelia who is a zoo keeper, who is not from money and whose mother is suffering from cancer. Ironically, the character Amelia is the only non-nepo baby in the group and she is played by the wonderful Eve Hewson who is Bono’s daughter.
Amelia’s best friend is a social media influencer called Merritt Monaco. She is smoking hot, and, it turns out has been sleeping with Amelia’s future father in law, Tag - and is pregnant with his child. Definite Venezuelan telenovela vibes for this part of the story.
The rehearsal dinner gets revved up with drinking, dancing and drama and then early the next morning Merritt is found washed up on the beach dead.
Nantucket’s two finest are called in to investigate, which leads us to question one:
Why is Nantucket’s police force so tiny?. They have one detective called Nikki Henry (Donna Lynne Champlin getting progressively more incredulous at the material throughout the series), a police office called Carl who should have retired in 2006 and a Chief of Police who is leading the murder investigation while also trying to maintain relations with the family who pay for his police cars and keep his daughter in line as a single father. The Police station appears to be above a strip mall with one dark and broody interview room that might have been left over from another show.
Nobody has lawyers - The Police randomly turn up at the super rich people’s house and take them to the station for questioning. In one scene Greer says “Sure, let me get my bag.” Now everybody knows that rich people consult lawyers when they take a shit so the thought of any high net worth individual, much less one who makes her party guests sign NDAs, going to a police interview without a lawyer is a little shaky.
The Names - Nicole Kidman’s character is called Greer which is ok but probably pushing it. However, her husband is called Tag which sounds like a 50s b-movie star who always played macho cowboys but was secretly gay. There is Merritt Monaco the influencer which has a slightly 80s porn vibe to it but the most ridiculous of all is the young Indian character who is called Shooter Divall. Nobody calls their son ‘Shooter’
Everyone wants to shag Tag - he is a married 60 something year old man with severe drug and alcohol problems BUT apparently he is irresistible to women (and men). So hot and sexy is this emotionally stunted addict that his wife, who knows all about his infidelities winds up weak at the knees and quivering with sexual excitement when he puts his hand up her robe.
Isabell - Played by Isabelle Adjani who is made up to look like an aging fan of The Cure. We never really discover who on earth this woman is and why she was invited to the wedding except that she slept with the groom’s father and brother and the latter owes her $2million. Also she speaks in a combination of French and English which literally nobody in the real world ever does.
Isabelle Adjani as Isabell. Longtime fan of The Cure Photo: NETFLIX Why does Amelia pretend that she doesn’t recognise Shooter from meeting him on the B Train? But then she almost has sex with him and is caught by her fiancee who she then has drunken sex with in a restaurant kitchen during a function - has anyone on this production every worked or looked inside a kitchen during service? There is also a bedroom scene that implies that Amelia wants to have sex doggy style but Benji ( her fiancé) wants it face to face but this is never explored further.That’s several questions but all from the same root.
Eve Hewson as Amelia Sacks in The Perfect Couple Photo:NETFLIX When the local police put out an APB for Broderick Graham who is supposedly ‘involved with the Turkish mafia” why don’t the Feds get involved? And how did Graham get into the US as a known and convicted criminal - a tourist can’t even get in if they spell their name wrong on an ESTA. Surprisingly, Broderick (which is not a common British name) is a little intimidated by the rinky dink police force despite being a ‘British Scarface.’
When Greer (Nicole Kidman) makes her huge revelation near the end that she used to be a hooker the whole family just goes blank. Then they all shrug and go “Oh well,” and continue with their bitching. There is a brief discussion in front of the kids around whether Tag paid Greer for their first sexual encounter. Tag says he didn’t but Greer’s brother, Broderick, who was also her pimp says that he did. And yes it is as weird as it sounds.
Why do the three brothers only have one way of communicating which is essentially a more sweaty version of Beavis and Butthead. And there is no family resemblance. And what in the name of the Great British Bake Off was the wedding cake fight scene about? Did the director need an extra three minutes to plug a gap so she had one brother and his wife steal the 5 foot high cake from the wedding that was cancelled because the Maid of Honour washed up dead?
Why does Greer travel to London Zoo to find Amelia and present her with the manuscript of her next book. Amelia is helping a disabled woman feed the penguins when the Queen of Entitlement® sweeps in and interrupts her. How did Greer get into the penguin enclosure, where did Amelia put the unbound manuscript and how did US citizen Amelia get a UK work visa for a job as a zoo keeper?
The Perfect Couple is a great watch despite its flaws and is well worth your time. Pour a glass of wine, let the week’s worries melt away and enjoy the show for what it is.
Check it out on Netflix.
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