It’s disheartening that Nicole Kidman, maybe the most versatile film actress since Meryl Streep, has spent an alarming portion of the last decade in mostly forgettable television shows. Big Little Lies may have had some cultural cache upon its debut, but the appeal of the series was the hook of several major Hollywood stars in a weekly whodunit series; it's a conceit that’s now less of an anomaly when there isn’t much difference between film and television acting. Even the most hardened of Emmy Awards prognosticators may have trouble identifying the differences between Kidman’s work in Expats, The Undoing, Roar, and Nine Perfect Strangers.
There’s no shame in Kidman taking a paycheck gig, as it’s less embarrassing than the direct-to-video projects that Nicolas Cage and John Travolta have spent the last decade making. Nonetheless, it becomes less commendable when these trashy airport adaptations are able to wear the guide of prestige, as they’re given the robust rollout and star-studded ensembles normally reserved for legitimate works of quality adult entertainment. The Perfect Couple isn’t the worst thing that Kidman has appeared in, but it distills everything wrong with the current streaming economy.
Based on the bestselling novel by Elin Hilderbrand, The Perfect Couple has Kidman in the role of Greer Garrison Winbury, another absorbed, successful writer who’s at odds with her dysfunctional family. Her husband Tag is played by Liev Schreiber, whose performance might be the show’s best because it's unusual to see him make someone as far removed from Ray Donovan as possible. Greer and Tags’ son, Benji (Billy Howle), is set to be married to Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson), whose supposed interest in her fiancée has attracted concern from both families. Since the appeal of shows like The Perfect Couple is the depiction of rich people put on the hot seat, but never forced to face actual consequences, the inciting murder is of Amelia’s best friend Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy).
The Perfect Couple’s insipid insistence that “wealthy families might be a hot mess” is more infuriating than it would be to completely ignore the characters’ privilege. It’s a show that has no perspective on the mindset held by those with societal advantages, as the vast majority of the series is contained to a reclusive wedding resort as the murder investigation has unfolded. The escapist fantasy that the show could’ve provided is lost within a series of plot twists that fail to register. Since The Perfect Couple exists within a heightened version of reality, there’s nothing to distinguish any of the reveals intended to be shocking.
Kidman’s performance isn’t bad, but it's weightless given her capacity for physical transformation. While having to detail a character’s shallowness is its own challenge, it’s hard to truly detest Greer and what she represents, as she’s nothing more than a pastiche of other prestige television anti-heroes. Greer’s stock responses are to be perplexed and frustrated, but she’s never completely nasty; what could’ve been an interesting breakout role for an underserved actress has become Kidman at her laziest. Even if there’s nothing beneath the surface of Greer, Kidman at least has the advantage of a character that exists for reasons other than the plot, something that many of her co-stars lack.
What’s most frustrating about The Perfect Couple is it’s clear that Netflix chased stars that could be easily placed within an advertising banner. Dakota Fanning’s a former child star who has gradually leaned into internalized, stoic characters, with recent great performances in Ripley and Night Moves; in The Perfect Couple, she’s stuck playing a daffy, doe-eyed pregnant woman whose only purpose is to react to the debauchery of her male relatives. The same could be said for Jack Reynor, who has elevated beyond his heartthrob phase to play nuanced, challenging characters in Sing Street and Midsommar; his role in The Perfect Couple is that of a belligerent snob that’s nothing but a poor recreation of Kieran Culkin’s performance as Roman Roy on Succession.
If the goal of The Perfect Couple was to use its one-note characters as avatars within a more compelling satire of wealthy indifference, then the show fails to conceive of anything that’s remotely transgressive. When shows like The White Lotus and Severance are depraved and uncomfortably didactic, it's laughable that The Perfect Couple is reliant on prescription addiction, inheritance funds, and diplomatic immunity as plot points. The use of flashbacks is also an issue, as the show doesn’t put enough specificity into any one portion of the timeline to give it any distinction.
At six episodes too long, it's obvious that The Perfect Couple would’ve been suited to be either a tightly-wound film or a prolonged weekly series that approached broadcast length. Six episodes is just long enough to introduce a set of characters, but doesn’t give the series any time to challenge perceptions. Yet, six episodes is likely what allowed the series to occupy a leading position on Netflix’s streaming charts the week it debuted.
The only reason that The Perfect Couple has inspired any sort of critical debate is its opening credit scene, which involved the entire cast dancing to Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals” in an over-the-top musical number. The credits don’t list the cast and crew, and while not more unusual than any of the legitimate scenes in the series, don’t have anything to do with the show’s context. This is perhaps the best representation of The Perfect Couple; it's a bunch of flashy, incoherent spectacles.