Is the girlfriend crazy? Is the mom crazy? Am I crazy? These are all thoughts I had while mainlining Prime Video’s bingeable new thriller, The Girlfriend, based on the novel of the same name by Michelle Frances. To put it simply, this show made me feel insane. And I loved it.
The Girlfriend is a tight six-episode miniseries that makes artful origami out of the evil mother-in-law trope, then crumples that creation and tosses it in the waste bin. Monster in Law, this is not.
The story is told from the points of view of both the titular girlfriend, Cherry Laine (Olivia Cooke), and the mother, Laura Sanderson (Robin Wright), with each episode toggling back and forth between their perspectives—sometimes of the same events.
At the center of this familial tug-of-war is Sanderson’s son, Daniel (Laurie Davidson), the bright (albeit, naive) prize both women appear to genuinely adore. He’s the crown jewel of Laura’s perfect-from-the-outside life, which includes a successful art gallery, a healthy relationship with her hot and wealthy hubby (Waleed Zuaiter), and a Spanish vacation home that makes the White Lotus hotels look like modest Airbnbs.
Cherry, on the other hand, is a working-class hustler who regularly brushes shoulders with the elite via her job as a luxury real estate broker. She’s unfiltered and scrappy, if a little resentful of the uber rich, like Daniel’s family, but finds herself falling for his boyish charms nonetheless. We learn early on that Cherry is not someone you want to cross.
Aside from its twisty, turn-y pace, The Girlfriend’s biggest strength is its anti-heroine leads, both of whom are played with aplomb by Cooke and Wright. (It takes real skill to play the same character both as they perceive themselves as well as through the eyes of an adversary.) Neither Cherry or Laura are perfect, nor are they aspiring to be. But they are sympathetic, in their own ways. That’s a testament to the source material and production team, because both Cherry and Laura get up to some truly reprehensible schemes.
The premise may sound repetitive—rehashing one moment multiple times from different POVs—but as the episodes wore on, I came to relish these scenes. What do the characters hear? What do they see? What information do we, as the audience, have that they don’t? These doubled-up moments gave way to a subtle, creeping paranoia that’s a trademark of all the best thrillers. It also stirred a disturbing thought I returned to again and again: Our own minds can’t be trusted.
There’s a concept in psychology called false memory, which explains why we can sometimes be our own unreliable narrators, our memories embellished by subconscious narratives. It’s not often malicious—in some cases, we may fill in the blanks of a foggy memory with details that sound correct; over time, we can come to believe these little white lies as fact. When Laura spills hot liquid on Cherry’s lap, did Cherry scream, “Fuck!”? Or did she attempt to politely brush off the spill as an accident? As the viewer, we may never learn the “truth” because both of our narrators believe that their version is the truth.
With their absurd plot lines, off-the-wall performances, and razor-sharp dialogue, Splitsville and The Threesome are the kind of romantic comedies we need right now.
At a time when people are fighting facts as though they’re up for debate, this is a terrifying concept. Who can be trusted? Can I be trusted? What is my foundation built upon? Who is the crazy one, really?
In the final scene of The Girlfriend, Daniel get as close to the truth as he ever will. We watch as he processes the information in front of him, combing through his own internal archives as the full picture clicks into place. And then, it’s over. What Daniel does next is finally for him to decide.