Natalie Portman comes to TV in a haunting, flawed but fascinating, adaptation of Laura Lippman's '60s-set murder mystery
“When a woman finally goes into the attic of her life and finds lost lies, misplaced memories, broken promises, she realizes how dangerous she was to those around her who believed she knew herself.” So says Cleo Johnson, in a lilting voiceover that colors the 1960s-set Apple TV+ crime dramaof the same name. But used artfully—and sparingly—as it is here, rather than as a lazy conduit for exposition, it can deepen a story’s psychological profile.
Cleo will soon become the next victim caught up in Mrs. Schwartz’s search for an identity. “The truth is,” she reflects, in narration addressed to Maddie, “you came at the end of my story and turned it into your beginning.” Yet Har’el and Ingram, whose layered performance captures the character’s vulnerability as well as her intelligence and grit, insist on making Cleo—a Black woman with her own family and jobs and past and dreams—more than just a vehicle for Maddie’s growth.
It’s a typically complex scene. On the surface, we observe the entitlement of a woman who can demand to purchase an expensive-looking dress off the back of a model and the racism of the white shop assistants who warn her that the garment could be “grody” after a Black woman wore it . A manager has to practically tear Cleo out of it, with no regard for her comfort, so Maddie can try it on.
The show’s visual style further deepens its psychological insight. Har’el lingers on uncanny images of everyday life. Blood from the lamb Maddie picks up from the butcher drips onto her coat, and it looks like she’s been stabbed in the abdomen. We enter the parade through the perspective of a drunk man in a mailbox costume who has stopped to pee in an alley.
Ultimately, how much you enjoy the series will depend on whether you come to murder mysteries for comfort or you yearn to see the everything-in-its-right-place endings the typical whodunit supplies thoughtfully subverted. There’s nothing cozy about. But I’d take the riches it unearths from the attics of its characters’ minds over certainty any day. TIME may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.
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