Cover your eyes if you're afraid of spoilers. Netflix of The perfect couple It's not perfect, and the show isn't written specifically about that couple.
To be clear, this series is one to watch if you're squinting and only half paying attention while scrolling through your phone. The perfect couple It could be mistaken for two better shows: Big Little Lies and White LotusLike the splashy HBO hit, The perfect couple The story centers around a dead body shattering the lives of wealthy white people, the female characters are married to human scum who may or may not be murderers, and at the center of it all is a very jaded, very wealthy woman on the verge of total collapse.
Of course, viewers are here for Oscar and Emmy winner Nicole Kidman, whose wigs are always full of secrets, and this time she plays the matriarch of one of Nantucket's wealthiest families, with just three surnames to her name.
The perfect couple The series culminates in a number of final twists, including a sex-work-related origin story, a barbiturate-laced drink and drowning, an illegitimate child, and the revelation of a complicated trust-fund situation. But perhaps more interesting than any of the twists in the series is what it says about Nicole Kidman herself. In the past four years, Kidman has appeared in six TV series, four of which have, if not outright murder mysteries, involved rich white women and some sort of death shrouded in suspicion.
“I escort! ! Kidman's character, Greer Garrison Winbery, trembles and screams in the final episode as she explains to her family that she was a prostitute and that her father, possible murderer, Tug (Liev Schreiber), was a customer.
“Three times! Okay? Then, all“I'm done!” she whispers (Kidman's accent switches from Australian to Boston in three syllables), revealing that Greer Garrison Wimberly has the receipts. “I'm not going to take care of it all for you. I'm not going to take care of your ego. I'm not going to take care of your bullshit. I'm not going to take care of it all for you. You hear me? I'm not going to take care of it all for you.” It's all frothy and bombastic, and far more ecstatic and flavorful than some of the near-murderous women Kidman has played in recent years.
The two aforementioned seasons Big Little Lies Based on the novel by Liane Moriarty, Kidman plays Celeste Wright, a wealthy former lawyer and now stay-at-home mom living in Monterey whose husband was abusive, unfaithful and recently deceased. RuinIn “The Strangers,” she plays Grace Fraser, a wealthy Manhattan psychologist whose husband committed adultery and murder. 9 perfect strangers (2021) is a film adaptation of Moriarty's novel. Kidman plays Masha Dmitrichenko, a fearsome wellness coach who drugged clients at retreats with psilocybin and was shot (but not killed) once. Foreign ResidentsIn Star Wars: Episode I: The Last Jedi, which was adapted from the 2016 novel by Janice Y. K. Lee and premiered on Amazon this year, Kidman plays Margaret Wu, an alienated wife who, while grieving the abduction (and death) of her son, investigates her recently deceased neighbor as a suspected kidnapper, pedophile and murderer.
If there's a story about a jaded, wealthy white woman who's deeply involved in nefarious mayhem while remaining a little aloof, Nicole Kidman, her agent, and the streaming service are going to follow suit. Bonus points if it's based on a book written by Moriarty and marketed as perfect for beach reading.
Kidman's choices and work ethic have drawn some criticism: she doesn't make enough money. Serious Probably too much TV Serious One could argue that Kidman is being recognised as an actress, but that devalues an actress who has already won top awards in both film and television and is a producer on her own show. She does what she wants and seems to thoroughly enjoy making these light-hearted soap operas, from the intense antics to the crunchy monologues about how many times she's charged her current husband for sex. And Kidman has famously admitted that she takes roles for the fun of it!
The more we see Kidman in her various blonde lace fronts and accents, the more it feels like she's joking, or maybe even working a little into the joke, taking away the morbidity and creepiness from Death by stealing the spotlight from the usual portrayals of these soap opera protagonists. Playing Greer Garrison Winbery is her latest role in a story where death acts as the great equalizer, because death is the one thing the rich can't hide from with their millions of dollars (especially if their bastard husband is a murderer).
Is Nicole Kidman drawn to murder mysteries and rich women? Does she prefer TV to film? Is it fun to play a wealthy woman with a terrible, possibly murderous husband? She just… White Lotus But is it too famous?
We're free to draw our own conclusions as to why she is this way, but it'll be fun to watch Kidman continue to give us breadcrumbs over the next six to eight episode seasons.
