‘The Perfect Couple’ is the ‘Emily In Paris’ of rich-people murder mysteries

The Perfect Couple is a new murder mystery series from showrunner Jenna Lamia and The Night Manager and The Undoing’s Susanna Bier. The Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber series is so breezy, unbothered, moisturized, and in its lane, it won’t rattle you for even a second.

If that was the intention of the makers, then they’ve succeeded. I, for one, mostly had a relaxed, chilled-out time getting through its six episodes that went by fast. It’s unputdownable in the same way as those cozy paperbacks you can get through in one afternoon because you want to know how it ends. Not if you’re looking for some clever case-solving or subtext with social commentary on money and class or relationships. It’s too basic.

What is The Perfect Couple about?

In Nantucket, the rich and seemingly well-connected Winbury family is hosting their second son’s wedding at their sprawling home. Amelia Sacks, a down-to-earth and not-rich zoologist, is about to marry Benji Greer, though her future mother-in-law, famous novelist Greer Garrison Winbury, doesn’t quite approve of her. Then again, we don’t know what she really thinks of her eldest son Thomas’ wife Abby either. But she jokes in the first episode’s opening scenes that her youngest, Will, should never get married. Okay then!

Greer and her husband Tag are the perfect couple to the world, an image that helps market Greer’s book series which is inspired by a couple just like them. The wedding is also just days before Greer’s book launch, with all their friends—including Amelia’s BFF and maid of honor Merritt Monaco, groom’s BFF and best man Shooter Dival, and family friend Isabel Nallet present, amongst others. It is about to be an affair to remember. Until … a body washes up on the beach, forcing all the secrets, lies, and skeletons in the Winbury and Sacks family closets to come tumbling out. Suddenly, everyone in the main wedding party is a suspect and the investigation starts looking like something straight out of one of Greer’s books.

The Perfect Couple stars Nicole Kidman (Greer Winbury), Liev Schreiber (Tag Winbury), Eve Hewson (Amelia Sacks), Billy Howle (Benji Winbury), Dakota Fanning (Abby Winbury), Jack Reynor (Thomas Winbury), Sam Nivola (Will Winbury), Meghann Fahy (Merritt Monaco), Ishaan Khattar (Shooter Dival), Donna Lynne Champlin (Nikki Henry), Michael Beach (Dan Carter), Mia Isaac (Chloe Carter), Tim Bagley (Roger Pelton), and Isabelle Adjani (Isabel Nallet).

The Perfect Couple is not ambitious and that works for it… mostly

The Perfect Couple plays out like a breezy murder mystery that would make for a good airport read (as Greer’s books do) without stressing you out too much. But viewers should know going in that the series is not interested in making any commentary on the lives of the rich, like a White Lotus would (so don’t let Meghann Fahy’s presence let you hope). In fact, while it’s good that the series changed the actual ending of the novel (I haven’t read the book, only about the ending) because that was deemed unsatisfactory by many readers, that original ending, if handled correctly, might’ve still made a statement about how the rich can easily get away with murder.

No, The Perfect Couple leans more into the Big Little Lies territory, except, again, not really, because the secrets and lies and motivations are too basic and not scandalous at all. There isn’t some Machiavellian game afoot or cleverly hidden clues that you’ll have to keep an eye out for in every episode. Things are most often just as you would’ve guessed; if you think something is a red herring because it is too obvious, it probably is. And the series, despite having so many hot and morally grey people around, is shockingly low on passion or sex.

There are no uncomfortable truths or questionable behaviour threatening to turn the atmosphere serious, and ruin the PG-13 summer holiday vibe of this series. Even the opening credits, in which the wedding party matches steps to Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals,” is something you won’t feel like skipping simply because everyone’s so pretty, and the aesthetics are pleasing, and the vibes are a bop. You wish you were there amongst this bunch of people who are all unabashedly and unfailingly lying to each other, and that’s saying something for a murder setting.

The investigation lacks a sense of urgency too. Maybe it’s a rich people thing that despite a murder, life pretty much goes without a hassle. Parts of it, especially anytime they feature Tag, Thomas, or the detective, Nikki Henry (who is a breath of fresh air) are downright funny even, and an attempt at satire could’ve been made here because the series has some tonally jarring moments that are better placed in one than in a murder mystery that tries to take itself seriously.

You, the viewer, are invited to look at the events of the fateful day through the eyes of every relevant member of the wedding party and the needle of suspicion keeps moving from one character to another. The pacing isn’t necessarily bad until the last episode arrives with loads left to accomplish. You realize a couple of characters are yet to be examined as suspects, and the episode then quickly rushes through the remarkably bland secrets and lies unraveling fast enough that we can sweep all the red herrings aside and finally arrive at the killer.

By then, you’ve grasped the pattern, and it isn’t hard to guess who it could be because, for one, they are not blatantly obvious, and two, they haven’t yet been considered as a serious suspect. But I will give the series this much—it isn’t trying to one-up its viewers by making the killer some shocking reveal you couldn’t fathom, and that’s a good thing because this is the point where so many endings fail. This one at least makes sense. But what happens after the end does not.

I wanted better closure than just finding out whodunnit and their motivation. We get a montage of bite-sized snippets of what everyone’s up to, and it looks like this entire family constantly has their senses numbed by the pills that Thomas would hand around, because life once again goes back to normal! It’s like the events barely created a ripple in their lives, except for maybe three characters. Moreover, this series is called The Perfect Couple, so you’d expect a better commentary at least on the relationships, other than “Everybody is lying to each other.”

After Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, and The Undoing, Nicole Kidman feels so at home with these fancy, rich people murder mysteries that she could do this in her sleep. It would be wrong to say her characters in these shows are all the same; Kidman is great at infusing each of them with a distinct aura and appeal. However, they do blend into each other in places because of their genre similarities. But this was easily her most anti-climactic character, and I was a tad disappointed here. I almost snorted in my coffee when her secret came out because it was another one of those funny moments that felt like they didn’t belong.

Liev Schreiber as Tag just made me laugh so much because he was such a… stereotypical, unaffected, rich man, and he plays the part perfectly. The same can be said for Jack Reynor, who plays the pill-popping son who could get nothing done quite well. But, hands down, the performance that I enjoyed the most was Dakota Fanning as Abby, who made me flit between liking and disliking her frenemy vibe. 

There’s no couple, no character except the two cops and their real frustration with these rich folks, that I found myself caring for. I love Meghann Fahy but here she felt underutilised, and so did Isabelle Adjani. As an Indian, I was probably most excited to see what Ishan Khatter would be doing in this ensemble. His Shooter Diwal is this hot best man with a secret, which I was on board with. But then his character makes the most irrational choices, and when his truth is revealed, it falls flat.

Eve Hewson’s Amelia is technically supposed to be the main POV of this series, but she was written so blandly that I didn’t feel anything for her, or for her relationship with her fiancé, Billy Howle’s Benji. I got why someone like him would fall for her, but not the other way around. The actors did their best, but it was what was missing on the paper that kept this from being effective.

So what’s the verdict for The Perfect Couple? It’s not bad, it’s mostly popcorn fiction set in a beautiful location, and you can watch it for its non-confrontational vibes and zero takeaways, other than rich people have so too many lies amongst them, and the tragic part is they think they’re doing a good job hiding them but, like, everybody knows. Don’t go in here expecting something groundbreaking and you’ll be fine. It’s like the Emily In Paris of murder mysteries and exactly what you’d want from Netflix when you just need a pick-me-up, but with murder.