South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Netflix thriller series ends with a shocking head-spinner
I just watched a sleekly ridiculous Netflix six-parter titled “Behind Her Eyes,” and reader, like most love-it-or-hate-it prospects in this world, it’s neither.
It’s both-ish. It’s Noël Coward’s “Design for Living” as revised by Gillian Flynn on a dare.
It’s a melange of adultery, “lucid dreaming,” and an overarching cautionary tale about the risks of befriending both your boss (with benefits) and your boss’s apparently unstable wife (no sex but serious intimacy nonetheless).
Even with its problems, I like it. Yes, it feels a bit taffy-pulled into nearly six hours. Its triple axel of shocking reveals in the final episode is both wacky and, in terms of audience sympathies, pretty sad.
But “Behind Her Eyes” is also extremely wellacted. As with many binge prospects of medium quality, after a while you concentrate on the faces, if (and because) they belong to some strong and distinctive actors playing in more than one key.
Sarah Pinborough’s 2017 bestselling novel has been adapted by Steve Lightfoot and Angela LaManna and directed by the Norwegian filmmaker Erik Richter Strand. The book was marketed with its own social media hashtag: #WTFThatEnding.
“Behind Her Eyes” begins straightforwardly enough, with a chance meeting in a London pub between secretary Louise (Simona Brown) and psychiatrist David (Tom Bateman). Their candlelit eyes flash the look of love. Some kissing on the sidewalk, and then David retreats, quickly, looking like guilt on toast.
The next day at work, Louise learns that David’s the clinic’s new hire, and she’s his secretary. They agree to keep the flirtation confidential, with particular care not to agitate David’s blatantly troubled wife, Adele (Eve Hewson).
But lust wins round after round, and meantime, “Behind Her Eyes” gradually leaks out information about the tragedy in Adele’s past, the death of her parents, and how David saved her. In flashbacks, we see Adele recovering from her trauma at a beautiful rehab institute. We also meet sweet, messed-up Rob (Robert Aramayo), who’s struggling with heroin dependency.
The tentacles of addiction wrap around the narrative, along with night terrors shared by Adele and Louise. Director Strand and his design collaborators invent an artful eyeful of various dream states, owing a bit to Magritte and a bit more to “Alice in Wonderland” — referenced directly in one scene when Louise reads Lewis Carroll to her 7-year-old, played with lovely naturalness by Tyler
Howitt.
As Louise continues her affair with David, she also befriends Adele, again by chance. Adele knows she’s David’s secretary but nothing more. Adele and Louise agree to keep their friendship to themselves. That’s a massive hunk of deception for Louise, and it’s only a question of when everything will get sprung in “Behind Her Eyes.”
Does the series stick the triple axel? Some viewers’ eyes may never stop rolling, while others will find it effectively berserk, though it relies on supernatural developments that end up looking a bit silly on screen. “Behind Her Eyes” isn’t about people, really. It’s about #WTFThatEnding. I liked the journey more than the destination, but then, I don’t skate.