Knock on Wood

In the spring of 2023, the editor of the local newspaper, who also happens to be my father, excitedly told me that a Netflix miniseries based on a hit novel would be filming in our hometown. It was set to star Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman, and was called The Perfect Couple.

Years ago, I wrote an essay that has sadly been taken off the internet (though I hope to update and republish it soon) about the representation of my home, Cape Cod, in entertainment, and how films and series that have been filmed there have seemingly been unable to escape what I like to call “the Jaws curse” – ever since Spielberg’s classic was shot on Martha’s Vineyard, films like The Finest Hours, Summer Catch, and The Golden Boys have been unable to escape utter mediocrity, and therefore have not imprinted on the cultural consciousness. Cape Cod’s reputation as a vacation destination should, in theory, make it the perfect place for, say, a stylish murder mystery.

That’s partly why I was so excited about The Perfect Couple – an acclaimed novel, a great cast, and solid locations all around my hometown (Chatham) and Nantucket should make for an engaging series. The Writers Strike put a dent into filming (with some help from myself and Knock on Wood contributor Davis Mathis, both of us being prospective screenwriters ourselves), but today, Netflix finally debuted the finished series.

The only reason I was initially interested in the series was because of my hometown connection, but even then, given the reputation Netflix is accruing for haphazardly releasing more and more mindless drivel, it was hard to level expectations. I watched it all in one day – to be fair, I was a vehicle passenger for much of a ten-hour drive, so I had more time than I usually would – and now I know. Now I can let those expectations rest.

The truth is, The Perfect Couple is late to every conceivable party it tries to show up at – in recent years, there’s been a resurgence of stories about the rich and famous, specifically those who are deeply and irreversibly screwed-up. Had it been released ten years ago, The Perfect Couple might have been a sensation, but in a world full of tales with more commentary about indulgence and wealth than I can swallow, the series does little to distinguish itself from the crowd. I can see this as a story that works infinitely better on the page, where characters can run more freely and develop individually, but in an ensemble television series, the rules are different.

In fact, much of the aforementioned commentary is lost – since there’s been so much satire and more direct criticism as of late, it’s hard to tell exactly what The Perfect Couple is trying to do, and what tone it’s trying to maintain. Do you want to watch a series about a dysfunctional family full of rich, spoiled brats? Watch Succession. Want to see annoyingly wealthy people get their comeuppance? Watch The Menu or The Hunt. The trope of the grossly indulgent absurdity of the affluent folks who keep beachside mansions as summer homes is tired out by this point.

I’ll give The Perfect Couple an A for effort, though. The story begins through the perspective of Amelia Sacks (The Knick’s Eve Hewson), who is marrying into the Winbury family – the sort of rich folks who, according to wedding planner Roger (Tim Bagley), could kill someone and get away with it. That’s somehow not the most irritating piece of foreshadowing in the first episode, but the series weaves back and forth in time, mostly using police interrogations as a focal point; after meeting Amelia’s groom Benji (Billy Howle)’s incredibly (ab)normally argumentative family, the morning after the rehearsal dinner finds maid of honor Merritt Monaco (The White Lotus revelation Meghann Fahy) drowned under suspicious circumstances. The game is afoot.

Among Benji’s family is matriarch Greer (Kidman), a mystery novelist and breadwinner of the clan; quietly neurotic father Tag (Liev Schreiber, just coming off of a critically-acclaimed revival of Doubt on Broadway); temperamental brother Thomas (Midsommar’s Jack Reynor); snide sister-in-law Abby (Twilight’s Dakota Fanning); best friend Shooter Dival (Ishaan Khattar); and impressionable younger brother Will (Maestro’s Sam Nivola). It’s a murderer’s row of accomplished talent (I haven’t even mentioned Michael Beach, Mia Isaac, Donna Lynne Champlin, and Isabelle Adjani, who round out the supporting cast), but I wasn’t surprised that everyone was talented – I was shocked that they weren’t stronger together. Somehow, even though everyone shines on their own, most of them do not work as part of the ensemble, which is a crucial failure for a show like this. Nicole Kidman is good, but I know she can do better (I suspect she will blow us all away this awards season in Babygirl). Liv Schrieber is excellent, but too muted for the character to make a full impact. Jack Reynor plays an excellent douche, but I know for a fact there’s a character with more depth struggling to emerge from within him. Meghann Fahy is the standout, but there’s a big problem here: her character dies in the first episode! Her appearances after that round out her arc and piece together her demise through flashbacks, but she never gets more than ten minutes of screen time in the remaining five episodes. In a cast full of Oscar nominees and winners, I hoped for better.

It might not come as a surprise that the characters are broad archetypes – many are unrealized ideas more than they are three-dimensional figures, and even though the show seems to think they’re more interesting than they are, it isn’t willing to fill them out with the necessary depth to make them fully engaging. I truly believe the series would much more compelling if every actor dialed up their performance energy and embraced the inherent camp in the murder mystery genre premise.

On that note, I was not compelled, but I was intrigued by The Perfect Couple. The murder mystery is one of its least engaging aspects – the series thrives in its examination of image and public appearance, and what exactly “the truth” is. What does it mean? How does it, and the lack thereof, affect every one of your relationships? The indulgenies that come with the lifestyle of the fabulously wealthy treats everyone differently, and The Perfect Couple portrays a broad spectrum of what it means to embrace that kind of life – since Amelia is marrying into this family, she has a very particular foil in Fanning’s character Abby, who has fully embraced and bought into that life with no reservations. There’s some food for thought, but it never materializes as a real discussion.

I did not hate The Perfect Couple. I even hesitate to say I disliked it, but I found it aggressively mediocre. The fairly conventional murder mystery doesn’t help, and neither does the fact that the reveals and twists (of which there are many) are mostly done through verbal exposition instead of the visual storytelling the medium promises. But at a breezy six episodes, it’s never boring, and there are a few storylines that remain actively interesting. And whenever the absurd opening credits sequence, which features the entire cast dancing on a beach to Meghan Trainor’s incredibly on-the-nose song “Criminals” in a strange bit of tone juxtaposition, I found myself happy that something even half decent was produced on my home turf. Though I can’t in good faith recommend it to everyone, The Perfect Couple is far better than your everyday Netflix original, and sometimes, if only sometimes, manages to be entertaining enough to merit your attention and commitment. Maybe it was those expectations that let me down.

The Perfect Couple is streaming on Netflix.