The appeal of a crime mystery endures, as proved by Netflix’s latest number one TV show, The Perfect Couple.
It can’t hurt that two Hollywood heavyweights star, Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber.
They play the parents of a young man who is about to get married. But events are thrown into chaos when a body is discovered on the beach, on the morning of the wedding.
The victim? It’s the maid of honour. Everyone then becomes a suspect.
The Perfect Couple is set in Nantucket, an island whose fame outweighs its size. It’s only about 20km long. And much of the show is actually filmed around Cape Cod, on the mainland, rather than on Nantucket itself.
There are six episodes, and they tell a self-contained story based on a book. There’s no chance of getting strung along for season after season with this one.
The novel, which bears the same name, was released in 2018 and is the kind of book you might take on a lazy holiday.
This story is a pacy, twisty one, making The Perfect Couple ideal to binge over just a sitting or two.
It’s been compared to The White Lotus, blended with the lower-brow style of a Harlan Coben adaption — the most recent of which, Fool Me Once, was a Netflix mega-hit.
Don’t come expecting a masterpiece for the ages and we think you’ll have a good time with this one.
Empire’s 3/5 review sums it up well: "it’s schmaltzy, silly and very soapy — but the compelling plotting, well-established characters and sheer star power of The Perfect Couple will have you hooked.”
Not all the critics were quite as forgiving, though, leading to The Perfect Couple’s 54% Rotten Tomatoes score.
The Independent’s 2/5 review calls it “by-the-numbers Netflix pulp” while Paste Magazine’s review says it’s “the streaming equivalent of an airport novel, just entertaining enough to keep your divided attention but already fading out of memory as airplane wheels hit the tarmac.”
Just about everyone agrees The Perfect Couple is trashy. The question is whether you can enjoy trash on its own merits.
