Some of Netflix’s ‘The Perfect Couple’ changes were definitely for the better!
The Perfect Couple on Netflix is exactly the kind of series you want when you plan to stay in for a relaxed weekend and are looking for something fun but engaging to watch (read our review). Moreover, it has Nicole Kidman playing a posh wife to another rich man with a murder on her doorstep.
See? Perfect!
The series—which begins with each of its six episodes with the cast doing a dance routine to Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals,” a video that has gone viral—comes from showrunner Jenna Lamia and is directed by Susanne Bier. It is based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Elin Hilderbrand. However, the series makes a few changes in the course of adapting this novel that, IMO, actually make it better.
1. Character names
In Hilderbrand’s novel, the bride is Celeste, a name that might ring a bell for fans of Nicole Kidman’s Celeste in Big Little Lies. So to avoid that clash, Celeste Otis became Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson). Similarly, a few other character names were changed in keeping with changes in their backstories or ethnicities due to the actors playing them.
Nantucket police chief Ed Kapenash became Chief Dan Carter (Michael Beach), and the groom’s best man, Shooter Uxley became Shooter Dival as he was was supposed to a rich and well-connected Indian scion, played by actor Ishaan Khatter.
The Winburys’ family friend who is having an affair with the eldest son, Thomas (Jack Reynor), was named Featherleigh Dale in the novel. However, when French icon Isabelle Adajani was cast, the character’s name was changed to Isabel Nallet, and now she was French, too!
2. New characters
The character of Will Winbury (Sam Nivola), the youngest of Greer and Tag’s (Liev Schrieber) brood, was created for the series and did not exist in the book. However, his girlfriend, the chief’s daughter who worked for the caterer at the Windy party, Chloe (Mia Isaac) did exist in the book, albeit a little differently.
In the series, the chief is implied to have moved to Nantucket with his daughter after his wife’s death. In Hilderbrand’s book however, police chief Ed Kapenash’s wife Andrea is alive, and together they are raising twins, children of Andrea’s cousin who had died in a boating accident. The twins are Chloe and Finn. And yes, Chloe does have a job with the caterer.
3. The charming detective
“Charming” is probably the last word you’d use to describe the no-nonsense, socially inept Detective Nikki Henry (Donna Lynne Champlin) who joins the Nantucket police chief in investigating the Winbury case. However, in the book, we have Detective Nick Diamantopolous, an unbelievably good-looking and dynamic detective who manages to charm the women in the story to spill all they know without much hassle. IMO, Nikki Henry was such a fun, no-frills character to have, and she was relatable in her shock over all the rich-people crap that the Winburys pulled!
4. The bride’s stutter
Something that might have been interesting to add to Amelia’s character in the series, because it was otherwise rather bland, is that in the book, the bride Celeste developed a stutter in the days leading up to the wedding.
We know that she was having second thoughts about marrying Benji (Billy Howle), and we find out that it’s because she had unresolved feelings for the best man, Shooter. And in fact, in the book, Celeste’s stutter would disappear every time she was with Shooter, giving us a clear sign that Celeste and Shooter had something special!
5. Greer’s story
The Perfect Couple series positions Greer Winbury as the central character, which in the books is more Celeste. And that’s why Greer’s character undergoes significant changes from the book version.
Unlike the successful novelist that Nicole Kidman’s Greer Winbury is, with fans dying for her next “Dash and Dolly” murder mystery to come out, book-Greer is struggling to resurrect her book series. And something tells me her agent and publisher would not have thrown her some fancy party to celebrate her new book, let alone buy her next one after the fiasco that her husband pulled at the party!
The whole backstory that Kidman’s Greer gets in the series—being an escort, her brother being her manager, and how she met Tag Winbury when he availed her services—does not exist in the book. Consequently, the character of Broderick Graham, played by Tommy Flanagan, also does not exist in the novel.
6. Tag’s gift to Merritt
In Hilderbrand’s The Perfect Couple novel, Tag Winbury gifts Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy) a thumb ring, which she throws away on the beach in anger. And it is this ring that Merritt spots in the water and tries to grab in the last moments leading to her death in the book. In the series, Tag gifts Merritt a diamond bracelet about which Greer finds out from the jeweler who visits her home with the wedding rings. And the bracelet ends up with Will, who picks it up after Merritt throws it away on the beach in anger.
7. Bruce cheating on Karen
The Netflix series doesn’t give much the bride’s parents, Bruce (Michael McGrady) and Karen (Dendrie Taylor), much to do. If anything, they are the titular perfect couple, because they don’t have any secrets between them, and Bruce is there for Karen through her difficult battler with cancer.
However, in the book, Bruce is implied to be a closeted gay man. One evening over drinks, Bruce confesses to Tag that a few years ago, he had developed feelings for a coworker named Robin. Though Bruce keeps it vague and Tag could’ve easily assumed Robin was a woman, Karen overhears the two and knows that Robin was, in fact, a young man.
8. Karen’s pills
Book-Karen is also keeping her own secrets from her husband Bruce. In the novel, Karen does bring over some pills for euthanasia, but she has obtained them illegally from a doctor who sells them for a hefty price. And her husband and daughter never find out about it, because the cops never solve Merritt’s murder.
9. The ending
The best change that the series makes from the book is the ending because the latter could’ve left so many people unsatisfied. Moreover, books let you do the whole character’s inner monologue, and we get the ending chapter of what actually happened to her from Merritt’s POV, which could’ve been a tad pretentious on screen.
Spoilers ahead!
So, in Elin Hilderbrand’s novel, Merritt Monaco’s death is ruled as an accident by the cops after a day’s investigation doesn’t yield anything. However, one character—Greer—figures it out and decides to stay mum. Turns out, Abby (Dakota Fanning) was upset over her husband’s affair with Featherleigh Dale, and decides to crush a pill into her glass while Featherleigh has gone to the restroom, but only to put her to sleep so she doesn’t have sex with Thomas.
However, Featherleigh brings the glass to Merritt, who is sad over what happened with Tag. Merrit then is alone at the beach when the drug takes effect. She’s going after the ring Tag gave her that she threw in the water when she falls asleep and drowns.
In the series, the ending is different. Abby’s motivation is less about who her husband sleeps with and more about the money that he is supposed to get through his trust fund, which would be jeopardised if Merritt gave birth to her and Tag’s baby. And so she decides to take care of it. With Amelia’s mother Karen informing the cops about her missing pill, and the statements from Thomas and Isabel, Abby is apprehended.
However, it does look like Greer might’ve known it was Abby in the series as well, since we see her awake and watching Merritt through her window around the time of her death.
10. The epilogue
The book ends with Merritt’s POV on her death. but the series concludes with Abby’s arrest, and there’s an epilogue too to tie it up in a sweet bow. Amelia doesn’t get back with Benji or Shooter, but instead moves to London to work at a zoo, where Greer tracks her down with some difficulty. She tells Amelia that her hostility towards her stemmed from jealously because she was envious of Amelia’s freedom to be herself, which Greer was finally able to achieve after she came clean to her family in the last episode.
Greer then hands Amelia the manuscript of her new book, titled “Your Move,” and tells her that it is a book not about Dash and Dolly, the perfect couple, but about Amelia who showed Greer what she was missing. She also invites her to dinner, an invitation that is left open ended, even though the showrunner has suggested that Amelia might’ve ended up going, and who knows, Greer and Amelia might even become friends!
So what did you think? Did you like the book’s version better?
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