The Perfect Couple

Entertainingly absorbing and beautiful to look at, the show (created by Jenna Lamia and directed by Susanne Bier) has “general audience” written all over it and is a great example of what the genre can be when it’s handled with skill and wit. .... Amassive improvement from the source material.

There are times when “The Perfect Couple” exercises poetic license — one potential suspect after another eschews the presence of a lawyer so we can get some juicy and revealing interrogation scenes — but we’re in pure escapist territory here, so we don’t mind. Even the opening titles, with the full cast performing a loosely choreographed dance number to the sounds of Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals,” is something to see. This is one of the best limited series of 2024.

As the summer comes to an end and the sun sets again on holiday season, there’s lots to like about this well-crafted escapist escapade as we attempt to untangle the mystery while dreaming of how we would be happier if we were so rich.

The Perfect Couple is operating so well on its own bizarro wavelength, with over-the-top performances, melodramatic dialogue, and sharply satirical characterizations of the ultrawealthy that make it feel tonally distinct — especially as it lacks the sympathy and sermonizing so many other series of this type labor under. Instead, The Perfect Couple has a tongue-in-cheek singularity that helps its episodes slide by.

As clues are unearthed, long-held secrets about the Winburys come to light in the most absurd ways, making way for a pulpy, overdramatized and entirely entertaining show.

“The Perfect Couple” is best described as a beach-read come to life.

Lamia has kept exactly what makes such books great and presented us with a glorious, ridiculous treat. Nothing to do but sit back and enjoy.

Easy breezy summer thrillers and self-aware melodrama work best when everyone understands the assignment at hand and from the jump — from the very first note of that Meghan Trainor song — The Perfect Couple reveals it knows exactly what it's doing.

This arch and at times outlandish miniseries delivers the cheap and tasty thrills of a beach read on a lavish, prestige-streamer budget.

Despite its rushed ending and inconsistency in tone, The Perfect Couple excels in its character development thanks to standout performances and complex, winding tension.

Still, the ending is juicy and genuinely surprising, part of a finale episode that is rollicking good time. If only its melodramatic, borderline ridiculous tone could have been replicated in each of the installments.

While class differences are theoretically a major part of The Perfect Couple, its investigation of them doesn’t reveal much beyond the fact that wealthy people are often assholes. But even if the upper-crust world that the series conjures doesn’t provide much in terms of meaningful insight, it still makes for a richly detailed place to take in a sultry murder mystery.

Disappointingly, going by the first four episodes of The Perfect Couple, it’s a tad soft-boiled. For this sort of thing to work, as with The White Lotus, the script has to be dagger-sharp, merciless. When that attitude isn’t there in the writing, you sense timidity.

Yes, it’s schmaltzy, silly and very soapy — but the compelling plotting, well-established characters and sheer star power of The Perfect Couple will have you hooked.

The only reasons we’re recommending The Perfect Couple are Hewson, Fanning, and our fervent hope that the series continues to be more irreverent than most shows in this annoyingly persistent genre.

The series is at its best in the earlier episodes, when we're getting to know the characters, the mystery is in its early stages and we're getting drip-fed twists. Unfortunately, it feels as though the series, or certainly the book upon which it was based, doesn't know where to stop in this department.

The Perfect Couple has all the soapy twists you could want from an easily digestible binge-fest and it’s graciously short compared to most. But a mansion full of horny, caustic millionaires has been done better elsewhere.

The Perfect Couple is trash but it is top-notch trash, a show aiming only for sugar-hit moreishness and hitting the mark in almost every scene.

None of the performances are breakouts, but at least Reynor and Fanning have a delightful time playing a cocky married duo. But it honestly almost feels like the cast wanted a swanky vacation in Nantucket, and the results come off as confounding as some of Kidman’s recent TV choices.

While this miniseries has great performances from its A-listers and a few deliciously dysfunctional family moments, it ultimately feels like the streaming equivalent of an airport novel, just entertaining enough to keep your divided attention but already fading out of memory as airplane wheels hit the tarmac.

It’s complication for complication’s sake, basically window dressing for a show that boils down to the idea that rich people are weird. Now there’s still some joy in watching but you’ll have to decide if you like Nicole Kidman enough to spend six hours with these terrible people.

Intriguing side plots get cut off. Curious character arcs stop short. Any kind of class commentary is negated by the show’s obvious devotion to making sure you like this family.

Hamstrung by the need to keep us guessing for six whole hours, when the plot clearly cries out for the efficiency of a two-hour film, the scripts render most of the Winburys and their associates too one-note to even seem worth getting to know.

The Perfect Couple is by-the-numbers Netflix pulp. In its lack of originality, it invites comparison with Big Little Lies, but absent the tension and intrigue of that drama, we’re left with something as superficial and unfulfilled as the family it depicts.