Ever since I first saw Olivia Cooke in Bates
Motel where she played Emma, Norman Bates young friend who was forever
attacked to an oxygen tank I have been in awe of her work as an actress. Much
of her film work has been playing either women who are frail such as Me and
Earl and the Dying Girl or women who only appear frail such as Samanthan in
Ready Player One and her terrifying work in the undervalued masterpiece Thoroughbreds.
I don't think I knew until fairly recently she was British though the fact
she played Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair should have been a big clue.
Her television work in recent years has shown her embracing her natural accent first as
Sid in Slow Horses, then as the adult Queen Alicent in House of The
Dragon. In both cases her frail appearance does much to hide that inner
steel. And had I known she was playing the title role in the recent Amazon
limited series The Girlfriend I would have ended up watching it quicker.
The series has already been nominated for a
Golden Globe and a Critics Choice Award for Best Limited Series but the major
draw appeared from the start to be Robin Wright. Robin Wright has been playing
steely characters most famously as Claire Underwood, whose rise to power was as
fascinating as Frank's on House of Cards until the show drove in to hard
to melodrama rather than politics. So when you have two actresses this superb
you're expecting a power struggle. That it happens to be over a man is not
surprising; that Wright is playing the mother and Cooke the girlfriend less so.
Watching this series it is impossible for
me not to me reminded of one of my favorite shows Damages which famously
was about a struggle between Patty Hewes and Ellen Parsons, a struggle for
dominance that led to a lot of blood being shed before it was over and it was
up to the viewer to see who one. Unlike Damages The Girlfriend acknowledges
upfront the biggest similarity in its tagline: "There are two sides to
every story." The series than demonstrates that it's going to show both perspectives:
Robin Wright gets one version, Olivia Cooke
the next. In many cases they overlap and each time we see how both women see
it.
Wright plays Laura Sanderson, a fiftyish
art gallery owner living in London who at the start of the series is planning a
major show. The first time we meet her son Daniel they are in a swimming pool
and its really hard to get away from the sexual implications even when we know
the truth. Laura's possessive nature is
explained to an extent but the viewer can't get away from the creepy factor and
to the show's credit, if never shies from it.
Daniel is an aspiring doctor who is
planning to become a trauma surgeon. His father, Laura's husband, is a wealthy
hotel owner and the family is from enormous wealth which is clear from the
start. When he introduces her to Cherry Laine (Cooke) the natural assumption is
that she's some kind of stripper. When we first meet her, she goes out of her
way to deflate it with a joke.
Cherry claims to come from money and from a
major British boarding school. It's clear from the start there are holes in her
story and Laura seems naturally suspicious. Eventually she goes to the office
where she works and sees her punching a man.
All of this comes from Laura's perspective.
Then the show switches to Cherry. Cherry is very much from a working class
background and its clear that she's being passed over for promotion multiple
times. Her former boyfriend has been acting in a very overt way to attack her.
She meets Daniel when he thinks he's coming in to see a different real estate
broker. The two go to a penthouse and immediately begin to flirt. Cherry very quickly realizes this is the
wrong place for him and takes him to a more humble abodes which they have to
break into. Eventually they have a rendezvous at his parent's flat, and that's
when Laura shows up. This leads to an incident were Cherry accidentally steals
Laura's bracelet and can't find a way to give it back.
By switching perspectives in each episode
(I've only seen the first two) The Girlfriend does a great job of switching
the viewer's sympathy when we see the same scene from different perspectives. From
Laura's perspective at the dinner, when she pours coffee on Cherry's dress we
think its because she's distracted by Daniel's news. From Cherry's perspective,
it seems deliberate but we're not sure and our sympathy is with Cherry because she
paid money for an expensive dress and wanted to return it the next day – something
she can't do now and will be out of pocket 300 pounds.
The viewer's sympathy through much of the
first two episodes is with Cherry because we know her backstory in a way Laura
doesn't yet. Cherry comes from very humble beginnings with no real access to
money and she's clearly been ashamed of her entire life. Laura does seem a little
to invested in Daniel's happiness and it does have a creepy vibe. But on the
other hand Cherry is very blunt with her actions. Her mother is a butcher and we see her take
the innards of a dead animal, then pretend to be a serve so she can get it into
her former beau's wedding cake and so when the cake is cut, horrible bloodshed ensues.
When Laura learns about this, she's appalled and it doesn't help matters
immediately afterward that we catch her in a lie.
There is clearly a deeper story going on with
Laura as well. We know that she had a daughter and that she died very prematurely,
though we still don't know the circumstances. Laura has never entirely stopped
mourning and when we see a room that has all of the daughter's possession in
it, it clearly still is a subject of difficulty for her husband. We also know
that at one point when their marriage was struggling she had an affair with
another woman and was planning to leave Howard for her until she got pregnant
and she chose her family. Critically the only person she's told is Cherry and
we know that won't end well.
For all my issues with Wright on her
decision to recently emigrate to England I still respect her ability as a
performer. And watching her both act and as a director (she had directed the first
three episodes; Andrea Harkin directed the last three) I am yet again reminded
of how she is one of the great actress of our time. Like so many actresses as
she has aged she has become more steely in the characters she portrays. But the
sexuality as well as that frailty is there and she's more sympathetic even as
we are reluctant to buy it.
But for all the award nominations she's deservedly
received its Cooke who truly impresses. For the first time in my years of
watching her the frail nature is nowhere to be found in Cherry. This is a woman
who flaunts her sexuality, who is utterly bold in her attitude towards Daniel
and while she may be insecure about fitting in with the family she is not shy
about who she is and how much she cares for him.. Cherry has clearly been underestimated
her whole life and she is not walking away from it even here. For the first
time I can tell Cooke is having fun playing someone very close to a femme
fatale and every moment she's onscreen it’s a delight to watch her. Cooke needs to be among those who are considered
for Emmys this year and if she has to lower herself to being considered for
Best Supporting Actress even though
she's clearly a co-lead, well, her character's more than used to it.
It's pretty clear something dark is going
to happen in five months' time: the series flashes forward to an argument
between the two that sounds like its going to end in bloodshed. (Damages did
this first by the way.) But watching The Girlfriend is so much fun that
I'm honestly hoping there can be some kind of sequel where the two of them go
on the run for Europe, dancing in front of pools and getting heavily sloshed. As
we all know men are powerless beneath Cherry and Laura, and I want to see anything
where I get to watch these two powerhouses faces off. For now, I'll just settle
for watching this.
My score: 4.25 stars.
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