The Girlfriend review: Prime Video thriller is a camp, perverse must-watch

“If you heard my side of the story, you would see it differently,” says Robin Wright’s Laura in the trailer for new psychosexual thriller, The Girlfriend.

Therein lies the Prime Video series’ entire premise: when you’re presented with two deeply opposing perspectives of the same events, who do you believe?

House of Cards star Robin Wright is Laura, a London-based art curator with stacks of money in the bank. The mighty townhouse she shares with her husband Howard (Waleed Zuaiter) and guileless son Danny (Laurie Davidson) comes fitted with a pool, sauna, and gallery-cum-office. In episode one, Laura playfully wrestles with her son in said pool, and rests her foot on his thigh in the sauna.

That is to say that this mother-son duo are close. Too close, puritans might argue. So when Cherry (Olivia Cooke), a gorgeous yet enigmatic estate agent becomes Danny’s whirlwind girlfriend, Laura is instantly wary. Or, that’s what Cherry’s perspective would have you believe.

See, The Girlfriend, loosely based on the novel of the same name by Michelle Frances, is split between the two women’s perspectives. Each episode’s events are divided up by the slamming of “LAURA” and “CHERRY” on the screen in blood-red typeface. 

In a way, both perspectives offer truth: yes, Laura did spill hot sauce down Cherry’s front on their first meeting, and yes, Cherry did whack her ex-boyfriend in the face, which Laura happened to see. Yet each glance, each movement, each off-handed comment is read differently depending on whose eyes we’re seeing it through.

In Laura’s eyes, Cherry is a liar with an iron fist and a potentially mafia-scale secret hidden in her past, intent on weasling her son out of everything. In Cherry’s, Laura is an over-bearing, ice-cold monster-in-law with a bizarre, Freudian fixation on her son. Both takes might be true, or neither. We, as an audience, are left to pick a side. 

It’s a stunningly simple premise, but one that doesn’t feel overflogged, a rare feat in today’s streaming age approach of “throw anything at the wall and axe what doesn’t stick”. The tension between the two women – Wright, with beady, surveying eyes and a jaw tilt that translates to “I’ll kill for my son”, and Cooke, coolly crafty with a ruthless edge – is packaged in a way that is both nail-biting and deliciously camp. “Binge-worthy” is overused these days, but for The Girlfriend, the boot fits.

Plus, in a brush off of old Hollywood tropes, The Girlfriend isn’t a battleground for two women to clamber over a man’s attention. Davidson is fine as the privileged and all-but oblivious Danny, but he’s merely a plot device for the hostility between Cherry and Laura to simmer, and then explode (later episodes tease knife-wielding, wall-pinning drama and juicy ultimatums). These are just two women quietly beavering away to have their version of events believed, true or not.

Winningly, The Girlfriend doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s fun, and funny, and Cooke especially looks like she had a ball with it. Perhaps it’s because she knows the thrill of a ‘pick a team’ series; she’s best known for House of The Dragon, in which she’s Alicent Hightower on Team Green, over Team Black.

Wright, while absolutely immersed, also had to focus on director duties. Both characters have a glob of backstory to get into the narrative, from Laura’s deep-set grief, open relationship with Howard, and her queer romance that got away. Cherry’s past is a little more opaque, but we do know she’s the daughter of a working class butcher (handy) and doesn’t take romantic rejection lightly.

Even Danny has some history: he lost his virginity to Brigitte (Shalom Brune-Franklin), the daughter of Laura’s confidant Isabella (Tanya Moodie), whom he now refers to as the closest thing he has to a sister. Errrr, OK. 

Thankfully, The Girlfriend is in on all the undertones, perverse and otherwise. It knows it’s a little deranged and a little silly, but it’s also delightfully moreish. If you give any OTT thriller a whirl this year, make it this one.

The Girlfriend is streaming now on Prime Video.
 
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