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The Perfect Couple–Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

The Perfect Couple, an American seaside mystery based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Elin Hilderbrand, was released on Netflix in September.  

Set in Nantucket in an opulent mansion, Greer Garrison Winbury (Nicole Kidman), a famous murder mystery author, is obsessing over the wedding for her favorite son, Benji (newcomer Billy Howle), to a middle-class zookeeper, Amelia (Eve Hewson of “Bad Sisters”).  The wedding is abruptly interrupted when the maid-of-honor, Merrit (Meghann Fahy),  is discovered face down on the beach in front of their estate.   The wedding is not rescheduled at Greer’s insistence, because she wants to get the wedding over with in time for her book launch, her top priority.  Tag Winbury (Liev Schreiber), her husband,  is befuddled by the refusal to delay the wedding as well as the book event, resisting cooperating with the police who suspect murder, not suicide. The Winburys, The Perfect Couple, is anything but.

Enter Massachusetts police detective Nikki Henry (Donna Lynne Champlin of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) who is fearless in confronting the elite cronyism of Nantucket’s rich and famous. Greer and Tag Winbury  have practically bought the allegiance of the local police.  Detective Henry will have none of it.

Nicole Kidman plays a stereotyped version of her glamorous ice-queen persona– with laughs that are thin, hard, and cynical.  Liev Schreiber is something of a slimy schlemiel, never close enough to his wife to read between the lines while maintaining the painful secrets his family has hung on to for decades.

The suspect who eventually is found guilty of the maid-of-honor’s murder is not revealed until the last fifteen minutes or so of what, by this time, has resulted in a languid, insufferably slow-paced mini-series.  If only the family feuds had been more  emotionally complex, with jealousy and regret underpinned by backstories worth telling.  And the ending is a whimper and so disappointing , namely, the final scene between Kidman and Eve Hewson.  All the energy in The Perfect Couple  has evaporated, deflating what could have been a stunning climax.

An undeveloped ending that almost feels like a betrayal of the characters we have watched until the finale.  Not worth your time, unless you are a diehard Nicole Kidman fan.

Availability: Netflix

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