Review of “The Perfect Couple” – Nicole Kidman’s beautiful crime thriller is incredibly good | Television

IIt's beautiful to look at, it's a 4,000-bedroom mansion on a beautiful stretch of coastline in the US, and it's packed with lavish lifestyles funded by fifth-generation wealth. There's cashmere knitwear in impractical colors and more beautiful coastline, a murder that nearly everyone in the area had a motive for – and did I mention the beautiful coastline?

We can only be in the present of Nicole Kidman's latest work. This time it's called “The Perfect Couple,” but you can think of it as “Big Little Lies” relocated from Monterey, California to Nantucket, Massachusetts. Or “The Undoing” with a plot. Or “Nine Perfect Strangers,” but not crazy. It's also, like every luxury crime thriller these days, partly “The White Lotus” – which Kidman didn't star in, but who remembers exactly?

So what are the changes to the spec? The perfect couple of the title is a bestselling author of romantic novels who, for some reason – perhaps abusive parents, perhaps a case of Bertie Wooster's “rough work pulled at the script” – is called Greer Garrison Winbury (Kidman) and Tag (Liev Schreiber), her husband of 29 years. It's possible they're not as perfect as they seem. They have three sons – Thomas (Jack Reynor), a real piece of work, golden boy Benji (Billy Howle) and young Will (Sam Nivola), who didn't come into play in the episodes available to critics, but it's rare indeed for a piece to go unused in these chess-like productions, so we'll watch and wait for his move.

Benji marries Amelia (Eve Hewson), whom he loves dearly, even though she grew up without the sea and without cashmere knitwear. Greer is furious about this and takes his anger out on everyone in the most Waspy way possible – by organising the perfect wedding for the couple, admiring the fruit basket that Amelia's parents bring as a gift, and attacking the bride behind her back at every opportunity.

Almost as adept at dismembering those not born gold are Thomas' pregnant wife Abby (Dakota Fanning, having a blast as a weak-spot-seeking missile) and wedding planner Roger (Tim Bagley), who has fallen for the glamour of his bosses. “They're so rich they say, 'I'm bored – let's buy a monkey!'” he says cheerfully. “Rich enough to kill someone and get away with it.”

Subtle foreshadowing has its place, but not here. There's also Winbury's loyal housekeeper (Gosia, played by Irina Dubova), who despises anyone who wasn't born into the family or has worked for them for at least two generations, and who especially admires Greer's stern leadership above all else. “Without fear, there is no control.” Her interrogations with the police intersect the plot and shine a spotlight on the main characters, just as the conversations with potential witnesses and suspects did in Big Little Lies. It's just as effective.

Add to this small troupe the hard-partying maid of honor Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy) – more “raw work” -, an $18,000 bracelet that Tag bought but didn't give to his wife, and Amelia's lascivious glances at the best man Shooter (Ishaan Khattar). There are plenty of ignored calls to Greer from someone named Broderick Graham, free pills and weed for everyone, and a blood-stained shirt hidden under the bed of the police chief's daughter. Add to that Isabelle Adjani as a longtime family friend (and Semtex in human form), and the stage is set for us to have a wicked good time during the harshest days of summer.

Once the police investigation begins, it becomes clear who the star of the show is – not Kidman, not the villa, not even the knitwear, but Donna Lynne Champlin as Det Nikki Henry. What a performance. Every thought the detective has about these horrible people flashes fleetingly across her face, but never long enough to jeopardise the case, no matter how much she criticises the local police chief Dan (Michael Beach) for pandering to the family that funds so many activities in the community.

The Perfect Couple has a real plot – and then some. The carousel of suspects spins and the revelations fall at perfectly timed intervals; if there's anyone who can resist binging all six episodes once they start, I'll eat a fruit basket. It may or may not have something to say about the haves and the have-nots, the power of money to corrupt, and class consciousness, but it doesn't have nearly the interest in such questions that, say, The White Lotus did. Jenna Lamia adapted the series from the book of the same name by Elin Hilderbrand, known as the queen of beach reading. Lamia has kept exactly what makes such books great and presented us with a glorious, ridiculous treat. There's nothing to do but sit back and enjoy.

“The Perfect Couple” is on Netflix