Based on the bestselling debut novel by Michelle Frances, The Girlfriend is a psychological thriller that tells an age-old tale of jealousy, deception, and revenge in a six-part miniseries of the same name. Laura and Howard Sanderson (Robin Wright and Waleed Zuaiter) are a power couple that seems to have it all—money, success, and a prized son, Daniel (Laurie Davidson), who is a self-proclaimed momma's boy and the centre of Laura's universe. But when Daniel brings home his new girlfriend, Cherry (Olivia Cooke), an enigmatic real-estate agent, the cracks in the Sanderson family's foundation begin to show. Laura is convinced that Cherry has ulterior motives for dating her son, and this insidious belief begins to fester into full-blown paranoia after a tragic event occurs, causing everyone's lives to slowly unravel, all the while the truth remains to be seen.
As is the case with a lot of book-to-movie adaptations, the character-driven plot gets lost in translation. Each episode is about an hour long, and the events of each one are told through a different perspective. Wright dons the director's hat for a few episodes, and her clear vision makes it seem as though there's a lot more going on just beneath the surface. However, the lack of external conflict ultimately makes The Girlfriend feel shallow, unable to fully justify its runtime.
Cooke and Wright are both such talented actresses who have great on-screen chemistry. So much so that whenever Laura and Cherry aren't together on screen, the tension that's been built up swiftly fizzles out again. Yet even this dynamic power play is only captivating for so long before it becomes repetitive to watch, which is why changing the medium of a story can be challenging to get right. Before the series comes to an end, it's abundantly clear that a film adaptation would have been a much more appropriate fit.
Lorde's cover of ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World' plays over the opening shot as the camera drifts through the aftermath of a gruesome scene before cutting to five months earlier. It sets a haunting tone that The Girlfriend tries to maintain but ultimately fails. In an attempt to fit into the dark, thriller genre, this series too often spirals into melodramatics, which makes the various twists and turns reminiscent of a daytime soap opera that takes itself too seriously.
The anchors in this whirlwind are the side characters, the ones on the outside looking in, who are there to reel Laura and Cherry back to reality, and that's where the heart of The Girlfriend lies. Underneath the theatrics, there's an interesting story here beyond “the overly controlling mother” versus “the gold-digging girlfriend” that would be better served as a simple drama. With that said, The Girlfriend is fun, because of and in spite of its multitude of cliche plot devices, like a car crash you just can't look away from.
6 out of 6 episodes were available to view.
The Girlfriend is now available to stream on Prime Video from 10th September.
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