The Perfect Couple has suspense, humour, romance and gorgeous visuals, says Deepa Gahlot.
Known as the Queen of The Beach Read, Elin Hilderbrand has written a series of bestselling novels, set on the picturesque island of Nantucket, also the playground of the super wealthy.
One of them, The Perfect Couple, finds itself converted to a six-part miniseries, probably hunted down by Nicole Kidman's scouts.
Of late, she has shown an unerring ability to pick parts (The Undoing, Big Little Lies) that suit her age, and also show off her statuesque elegance.
In The Perfect Couple, she plays bestselling author Greer Garrison Winbury, whose life seems as glossy as the landscape of the island, where she has a palatial summer home.
Her husband Tag (Liev Schreiber), three sons and a few friends have gathered there for the impending wedding of the middle son Benji (Billy Howle) with Amelia (Eve Hewson).
The bride-to-be does not have Greer's approval because of her lower social status but she bows to the wishes of her son.
The upper crust of Nantucket is so snooty that even the housekeeper has her nose in the air, looking down on anyone who does their own chores.
She contemptuously chucks into the bin the supermarket fruit basket Amelia's parents have brought as a gift.
Abby (Dakota Fanning), the pregnant wife of the good-for-nothing older son Tom (Jack Reynor) is subtly snobbish, trying to please the mother-in-law but also acting friendly with Amelia and her best friend, Merritt (Meghann Fahy), the maid of honour.
Ishaan Khatter appears as Shooter Dival, a close friend of the groom and his chosen best man.
French star Isabelle Adjani plays the sexy older woman, a friend of the family, who leads such a colourful life that she does not judge others.
The youngest son Will (Sam Nivola) is a teenager trying to comprehend the drama of his family.
At the pre-wedding festivities, the guests are all dressed like they have stepped out of a fashion catalogue.
Greer is also in preparation to launch her new book.
The social event of the year is all coming together when Merritt's corpse is found floating in the sea. The wedding is cancelled, as the police cordon off the house.
The island's cop Carter (Michael Beach) is deferential towards the Winburys but detective Nikki Henry (Donna Lynne Champlin), flown in from outside, sees no reason to treat the dysfunctional clan with kid gloves.
Greer tries to get her PR team to spin Merritt's death as suicide, and gets a grieving Amelia to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement to prevent her from talking to anyone about the incident. As the cops question the Winburys and investigate, they conclude that it was a murder, and everyone seems to be a suspect.
From Tag and Greer downwards, all the Winburys have secrets, and a reason to murder Merritt.
Director Susanne Bier and writer Jenna Lamia, have mostly stuck to the novel, except towards the end when they simplify it to point to a single killer, instead of a series of unfortunate coincidences. For no reason, the names of some of the characters have been changed.
That does not take away from the entertainment value of the show, which satiriSes the lives of the rich and famous.
There is, of course, no such thing as the perfect couple, as all of them who pretend to be faithful and caring are cheating hypocrites.
Greer, who lives behind a self-created facade, has to watch her flimsy house of cards tumble.
The Perfect Couple has suspense, humour, romance and gorgeous visuals.
Nicole Kidman with her gleaming blonde hair and alabaster skin, totally dominates the show. Greer is not a very likeable woman but she has the most to lose, since the men in her family are entitled trust fund idlers.
Ishaan Khatter, as the mysterious man of Indian origin, may have been a diversity hire (in the book the character is not Indian) but he acts with confidence and fits right into the sea of smooth-skinned sleek aristocrats, being 'kidnap rich' himself. Shooter does not come into his own till the fourth episode. Still, he does well in the part given to him, and he speaks accentless English.
The opening credits play over a Bollywood style group dance, maybe to appeal to the Indian diaspora.
The Perfect Couple streams on Netflix.
