Summary
At just four episodes, and with a tantalizing mystery at its core, The Perfect Mother is a perfect bite-sized binge-watch.
This review of The Perfect Mother is spoiler-free.
The first thing I thought to myself after watching The Perfect Mother, a new French mystery series about a mother whose daughter is implicated in a murder, is that more shows should only run for four episodes. In our endlessly shifting media climate, there just isn’t time for eight, or ten, or twelve-episode seasons to clog up our thumbnails, waiting patiently for us to find the time to unravel a mystery we don’t really care about. So, whatever else you might say about The Perfect Mother, that has to be part of the account. It establishes its premise, asks a bunch of interesting dramatic questions, and then rockets through the answers as though it has somewhere else to be.
Here’s that premise: Helene is a doting, relatively well-to-do mother who is in a stable but passionless marriage to her careerist husband Matthias. When their daughter, Anya, is implicated in the murder of Damien, the heir of a vast family dynasty, Helene teams up with her old flame, a cop-turned-lawyer named Vincent, to investigate the case, many details of which — some supplied by Anya herself — don’t add up. Shenanigans ensue.
There’s no mystery about whether or not Anya is lying. But the motives behind her deception, and the real circumstances that led to the death of Damien, begin to be rapidly revealed as the investigation continues. Where was Anya living? What was she doing? What was she hiding, and why? Everyone has secrets, from Anya herself to her brother Lukas, and Helene’s performatively perfect life, including her marriage and idea of motherhood, come into question. Meanwhile, Damien’s powerful mother has her own motives for “proving” Anya either killed her son or is covering for the person who did, and her resources might extend much further than the police.
This is standard but the nonetheless juicy stuff, and it’s informed by interesting-enough characterization, as Julie Gayet in the lead role forms a strong emotional anchor playing a well-meaning mother who knows she has cultivated an inauthentic illusion. There’s a romantic subplot between her and Vincent which feels a bit clipped, and her insistence on believing Anya initially, despite the abundance of contradictory factors, seems a bit willfully naive. But once more of Helene’s backstory and anxieties are revealed, her attitude makes more sense, while Eden Ducourant is compellingly inscrutable as the supposed victim.
It won’t set the world on fire, of course — there’s too much of a been there, done that feeling to the plot and it’s over too quickly to leave a lasting impression. But in the moment there’s a lot to like here; it’s engaging, the performances are strong, and it’s a relief to find a story confident enough to get to the point and not overstay its welcome. If you can spare the few hours it asks of you, The Perfect Mother is worth the investment.
You can stream The Perfect Mother exclusively on Netflix.
