When Netflix launched the trailer for The Good Couple—a basic eat-the-rich homicide thriller starring Nicole Kidman, Meghann Fahy, and Dakota Fanning—the response on my social media feed was one in every of collective glee. Within the miniseries, based mostly on a novel by queen of Nantucket drama Elin Hilderbrand, Kidman performs Greer Garrison Winbury—a best-selling author and the controlling, etiquette-obsessed matriarch of her old-money household. Greer is a mix of Determined Housewives lead Bree Van de Kamp, Actual Housewives star Lisa Vanderpump, and Recreation of Thrones villain (or antihero?) Cersei Lannister. In different phrases, she feels particularly designed to launch screams of “Mom!” from homosexual males in all places.
Watching The Good Couple, I couldn’t escape the sensation that I’d seen this story earlier than. Kidman’s current roles on reveals like Huge Little Lies and The Undoing have made her a pop cultural shorthand for the “rich white girl in disaster” archetype, a lot in order that Netflix’s promote for the collection wanted simply six phrases: “Wealthy household. Useless physique. Nicole Kidman.” Greer’s wardrobe, wigs, and British accent—which is simply the third-most ridiculous accent on this present—make her look like Homosexual Twitter’s Frankenstein creation. In truth, your complete collection looks like a piece of social media fan fiction, designed to elicit a response of “Inject it into my veins!” from individuals whose weekly screen-time studies are a supply of disgrace.
I’ve been getting this precise feeling about lots of upcoming initiatives recently, like Luca Guadagnino’s Queer—a homosexual romance in Nineteen Forties Mexico starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey, which premiered earlier this week on the Venice Movie Pageant. (Craig additionally performs homosexual detective Benoit Blanc in Netflix’s Knives Out franchise—however extra on that later.) Or an upcoming duo of A24 initiatives: Marty Supreme—a Ping-Pong film starring Hollywood’s favourite twink, Timothée Chalamet, alongside snowboarding fanatic Gwyneth Paltrow in her first non-Marvel film position in years; and Mom Mary—a “pop melodrama” by which Anne Hathaway will carry out songs written by Charli XCX and Jack Antonoff, costarring Hunter Schafer and Michaela Coel. I can be seated for all of those movies, which sound like they may very well be unbelievable, however I do discover myself questioning: At what level does the preview hype begin to obscure the precise high quality of the work? Studios know tips on how to create a undertaking that may go viral, however catering to our current tastes doesn’t all the time seize the zeitgeist. The truth is, there’s a sample rising, the place initiatives that really feel like they’re made to dominate our social feeds find yourself promoting themselves — and us, the viewers — quick.
The Good Couple is an undeniably entertaining present and fulfills the largest requirement of a homicide thriller: holding us guessing (and watching) proper till the top. However just like the household it depicts, it’s notably imperfect. Fahy—an actor whose dizzying abilities had been on full show in season two of HBO’s The White Lotus—feels underutilized. The present’s seaside setting and use of police interviews as a narration gadget really feel eerily much like Huge Little Lies, to the purpose the place it feels just a little lazy. And among the dialogue is so hammy, it sounds prefer it was written by AI. (“I really like this girl to demise,” one character says, in a flashback hours earlier than the homicide occurs. “Have you ever ever liked somebody a lot you’d kill for them?” asks one other.)
A lot of the characters, and the actors taking part in them, really feel equally predictable: the good-looking adulterer husband, the douchebag brother, the delicate and nerdy brother, the blonde bombshell homicide sufferer, and, in fact, the “no-nonsense” feminine detective who (you’ve guessed it!) can also be the brand new cop on the town. Even Greer’s bitchy wedding ceremony planner, Roger, is performed by Tim Bagley—whom we final noticed in an nearly similar position in Grace and Frankie.
This kind of casting—algorithmic casting, let’s name it—is definitely a lot older than social media. Hollywood has an extended historical past of following up one blockbuster undertaking with quite a lot of comparable choices. Look no additional than Meg Ryan’s (flawless) unofficial trilogy of ’90s rom-coms: When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Bought Mail; or the action-packed, stunt-heavy pivot of Tom Cruise’s or Matt Damon’s profession.
However what is new right here is the best way these reveals and movies appear crafted particularly for the social media second. A lot as with Oscar bait (movies that appear like they’ve been created solely for award-season glory), initiatives run the chance of feeling like engagement bait in the event that they’re too blatant about it. I first observed this when Netflix dropped the trailer for I Care a Lot in 2021. The movie stars Rosamund Pike as a scammer who takes benefit of lonely aged individuals by turning into their court-appointed guardian, after which robbing them of their property. It was unimaginable to not be reminded of her position as Amy Dunne in Gone Lady, a equally manipulative villain who tried to border her husband for her homicide. The truth is, proper all the way down to Pike’s hyper-neat bob, it felt like we had been supposed to be reminded of Gone Lady. That was the purpose. I ended up dissatisfied when I Care a Lot wasn’t half as sensible as Gone Lady. (As a result of, actually, how may it’s?)
There appears to be an at the least unconscious consciousness of this on-line, the place casting has turn into a meme in itself. When rumors concerning the solid for Glass Onion began to emerge, it appeared like there was barely an A-lister who wasn’t showing within the 2022 Knives Out sequel. This spawned numerous memes about fantasy castings. One thing comparable occurred with the all-star Barbie film and The White Lotus. (“Ship her to the White Lotus!” has turn into a shorthand for actresses whom followers love essentially the most once they’re being just a little bit evil.) Journalist Michael Baumann calls this fan casting. In response to the memes about Glass Onion, he wrote about how casting information has gone from an insider subject for business publications to a topic of fanfare on social media. “Everybody has some dream mixture of solid and story,” he wrote. “Possibly the film in your head canon won’t ever get made, however discovering out that [Edward] Norton and [Janelle] Monáe will share a display with Benoit Blanc scratches a few of that itch.”
I’ve positively participated in these memes (and I’m additionally operating an unofficial marketing campaign to pressure collection creator Mike White to solid Allison Williams in The White Lotus). Besides, there may be nonetheless one thing about it that irks me. A number of years again, I observed that some TV reveals gave the impression to be more and more geared towards “memeable” moments on the expense of plot. The second season of Huge Little Lies, for instance, appeared to turn into a parody of itself, from Laura Dern snarling “I cannot not be wealthy!” to Meryl Streep’s guttural screaming on the dinner desk. Casting that feels overly predictable (and, crucially, shareable) conveys an identical sense that decision-makers are being led by their viewers, moderately than having the arrogance to take followers to sudden and difficult locations.
Meghan Fahy in The Good Couple
Giving viewers extra of what they’re accustomed to may appear innocent, however I fear that this kind of typecasting through algorithm will finish with actors being pigeonholed into sure roles. Historically, typecasting has disproportionately affected ladies and other people of shade. Jennifer Lopez, for instance, has spoken prior to now about being typecast due to her ethnicity, and Katherine Heigl has additionally mentioned her issue branching out past rom-coms. (Not everybody will get to be Robert De Niro or Adam Sandler, flitting between horrible and status initiatives.) In The Good Couple, Greer finds herself creatively unfulfilled, churning out barely totally different variations of the identical novel to followers who lap the books up regardless of the declining high quality. It’s laborious to not discover the parallels with Kidman herself,as soon as once more taking part in a girl with darkish secrets and techniques who’s, to cite her flamboyant occasion planner: “kill-somebody-and-get-away-with-it wealthy.” (Fortunately her subsequent undertaking, A24’s erotic thriller Babygirl, appears tougher.)
Within the opening credit of The Good Couple, the characters placed on a flash mob efficiency on the seaside, set to “Felony” by Meghan Trainor. “Something that feels this good,” Trainor sings as they dance in formation. “Effectively, it have to be unlawful / It have to be unlawful.” That’s kind of the way it feels to click on “subsequent episode” a present like this, which appears to have been made to be was #content material by Very On-line individuals for every week, earlier than disappearing eternally. It’s much like these little issues all of us do typically, like getting a supply driver from an app to carry us one thing we may have sourced ourselves, or bribing a toddler in trade for a number of moments of silence. The short-term advantages are simply too irresistible, regardless of the wider results.
The antidote to this nervousness is artwork that’s so good, or shocking, that it exceeds our expectations. Like Challengers, the horny tennis film that was a lot extra, starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist. From the surface, it appeared like pretty brazen engagement bait, however Challengers ended up turning into one of many standout movies of the yr to this point. Crucially, it proved {that a} memeable social media second is definitely totally different from a real cultural second, which holds our consideration for longer, harnessing artwork’s energy to make us suppose otherwise about individuals, relationships, and the complicated job of navigating the world.
As compared, perhaps the issue with The Good Couple is that, whereas there’s nothing flawed with being an unashamedly “fairly good” present, it’s disappointing when a undertaking doesn’t dwell as much as the promise of its solid. The Kidman-Fanning-Fahy trifecta deserved extra. This collection will nearly definitely prime Netflix’s charts for every week or so. There can be memes, too, till the following shiny factor comes alongside. But it surely wasn’t fairly adequate to distract me from the truth that, too typically, we’re being spoon-fed.
Louis Staples is a contract tradition author and critic based mostly in London, UK. He writes “Cultural Staples” — a fortnightly tradition essay at Bazaar.com. His work is featured in The Lower, The Guardian, Vogue, Rolling Stone, and Selection.