Love Or Lies? Unveiling The Perfect Couple

The Perfect Couple should ideally have been renamed The Perfect Family as this is more about the unraveling of a family. The show is based on a book by Elin Hildebrand.

About the show

When one lavish wedding ends in disaster before it can even begin – with a body discovered in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony–everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect.

The show is essentially a murder mystery, with an all-star cast. Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber play the head of the family and are the titular perfect couple. Eve Hewson plays their would-be daughter-in-law, who feels out of place and intimidated by their wealth and sophistication.

What I liked

The best thing about the show was the scenery; now I want to visit Nantucket.

Acting-wise, Nicole Kidman is excellent in the show (as always). I generally see everything she’s in because I love her presence so much. Still, I found her wigs distracting and some of her face work unnerving. Isabelle Adjani, who plays a family friend, is unrecognizable! She’s had so much work done 😳. It’s very sad to see.

Eve Hewson looks gorgeous as always. She’s again one of my favorite actresses – just because of her enigmatic beauty. I loved her in The Luminaries and Behind her eyes, but I felt her role was a little underwritten here. Her relationship with her fiancé doesn’t make much sense. She just wanders around morosely through most of the episodes.

I was excited to see Meghann Fahy. I loved her in The White Lotus (season 2), but again she didn’t get a great part in The Perfect Couple. A few good scenes, but overall not much to do. Same can be said of Ishaan Khatter who I’ve seen earlier in A Suitable Boy.

Another famous face is Dakota Fanning who’s also impressive as the sometimes bitchy, sometimes sweet daughter-in-law of the family. So, overall a star-studded series, and they all acted superbly.

The suspense is also good. I had a brief idea it was who it ended up, but really thought it could be anyone until the alibis started dropping. I really didn’t put together the killer until just 5 mins before the detectives did. So, they definitely did a great job maintaining the suspense.

I also loved the dance sequence in the starting credits. It let me know that I was watching a campy, soapy sort of show, and set the tone for the series. Well-done!

What I didn’t like

There were a couple of underdeveloped stories, and some plot points that came out of nowhere. The dialogues were corny AF. Some of it actually made me cringe and felt very AI written.

The final episode was the weakest and felt very thrown together. It ended very abruptly, and brought down the entire show as a whole – just because how badly they fumbled the last few scenes.

Still overall, I enjoyed it and binge-watched it over a weekend. Worth a watch!