Having a good relationship with your in-laws is a privilege, not a given. Some parents have lofty expectations for their children’s life partners, which may be reasonable or may be entirely irrational and unrealistic. Circumstances change and people adjust, but that’s not always the case. The Prime Video limited series The Girlfriend, based on the novel by Michelle Frances, centers on a situation of prickly discord that only gets worse, leaving it to audiences to decide which of the parties is truly at fault.
Daniel (Laurie Davidson) is excited to introduce his girlfriend Cherry (Olivia Cooke) to his parents Laura (Robin Wright) and Howard (Waleed Zuaiter). As soon as Laura meets Cherry, she feels as if there’s something off about her. As the relationship progresses quite quickly, Laura sees more and more red flags and feels as if she’s going crazy since Daniel, Howard, and everyone else in her life don’t agree at all with her assessment. In each interaction with her boyfriend’s mother, Cherry experiences a chilling hostility from a woman Daniel has only raved about who seems not to want her to be anywhere near her son.
This series employs a perspective device similar to The Affair which shows the same scenes through the eyes of two different people. It’s never clear what the objective truth is, and like with that show, that can be alternately fascinating and frustrating. Neither Laura nor Cherry is completely innocent, but the way in which they perceive situations can take them from innocuous and misunderstood to deliberate and violent. Neither is in an enviable position, and rather than merely portray a rocky relationship with little hope of a positive outcome, this show heightens the drama by offering a defense of both its protagonists, presented back-to-back with a fully damning account of their actions.
This show’s title favors Cherry while events are often seen first from the perspective of Laura, and to make things even harder to read, Daniel is a man who really loves his mother and also has fallen hard for his girlfriend. At best, he’s naive, and at worst he’s downright oblivious, but his refusal to take a side and validate either woman in his life leads to increased desperation on both of their parts. Their methods of attack are remarkably different and speak to their life experiences, with Laura used to commanding authority and getting what she wants, even as an American living in England, and Cherry ready for a scrappier fight that will require her to get creative rather than rely on anyone for help.
After Wright’s Emmy-nominated turn on House of Cards, it’s refreshing to see her return to a similarly manipulative world but this time portraying another type of character, one who, at the start, is on top of the world, but whose refusal to accept Cherry being in her son’s life leads to hers beginning to crack and crumble. She could be empathetic but makes too many aggressive choices to be entirely endearing and pitiable. Cooke, no stranger to high-stakes feuds following two seasons on House of the Dragon, is superb as Cherry, turning on the charm when she needs and switching instantly into a mischievous and combative mode when no one’s looking. Opposite each other, they’re enormously compelling, and even as this show continues to level up and outdo itself with the intensity and absurdity of its characters’ feud, they remain grounded and make this show well worth watching.
Six episodes may seem like a short time to spend with these characters, especially given the quality of the actresses’ performances, but it’s also reasonable since an end point feels necessary. Eventually, they’d have to decide to get along and the show’s premise would disintegrate, or one of them would emerge victorious, ready to conquer the next daughter-in-law or mother-in-law, depending on the victor. Keeping it to six installments, which will all be available at launch, is a much tighter way to tell this story, one best recommended for those who don’t mind not having one narrative explicitly spelled out for them and prefer to have questions linger long beyond the final episode’s credits.
Series Rating: 7/10
