It may seem redundant for Netflix to order a second Series in which a deeply imperfect character played by Meghann Fahy is intimidated by a rich woman on an idyllic island in New England. From the point of view of hearing development, it may be. But the limited series “Sirens” is funny, surrealist and yet finally anchored in emotion enough to put entirely “the perfect couple” entirely in mind when the credits roll on this satisfactory summer getaway. “Sirens” has a strange cocktail of tones which does not always take place gently. Like the mythological creatures that give the show its name, “Sirens” – in particular the basic trio of exceptional actors – exercises a captivating traction that attracts and keeps you there for its five episodes rapidly evolving.
“Sirens” is also the word of emergency code between the Sisters Devon (Fahy) and Simone (Milly Alcock), now living separately after having endured an unimaginable trauma in their youth. When Devon’s distress signals remain unanswered apart from an extravagant edible arrangement, she slams and finds her young brother to the palatial domain known as Cliff House. It is there that Simone lives and works as the personal assistant devoted to Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore), a business lawyer who has become social and conservationist of birds whose close friends can call her “Kiki”.
Created by the playwright Molly Smith Metzler, “Sirens” is technically a follow-up of “maid”, the adaptation of memories featuring Margaret Qualley which has become a major streaming hit in 2021. Qualley and the protagonists of Fahy share a certain profile: they are both young women whose backgrounds of the lucky Developed to navigate to navigate the Duclaves backgrounds. But where “maid” was meticulously rooted in the daily grind of American poverty, “Sirens” – adapted from Metzler’s own play “Elemeno Pea”, written for the first time almost 15 years ago – has a fantastic sensation that separates not only the creator’s nap, but from the inactive series on the strong and the divisions of the class, which has the turn of the ” and “decrease in class”. appeared.
When Devon embarks, the ferry for the place of use of his sister, a fictitious island clearly meant to evoke silver paradises like the Martha vineyard, it is surrounded by a uniform as omnipresent of pastels Lilly Pulitzer as the effect is Stepford-Esque. The cliff where she faces Simone is not only a mansion; It is a castle castle, with its own lighthouse and its long and penetrating staircase to the beach. And Michaela herself has a magnetism which seems to go beyond wealth or charisma, leading her acolytes to the songs of Rachel Carson and exercising total control over the life of Simone, to whom she comes out. Devon does not draw words by quickly labeling this arrangement a cult.
This dream atmosphere gives both a suspicion of supernatural and a mood for the impetuous devon and carrying all black to trample in combat boots on the way to tell Simone that she is “dressed as a ship”. While Simone has moved away from their problems and in the stifling and co -depending embrace of Michaela – the two jointly make up a sext to the husband of hedges far from the older woman, Peter (Kevin Bacon) – Devon is stuck at the house in Buffalo, taking care of their father Widow Bruce (Camp Bill) while falling victims. Devon had previously abandoned the university to take care of his sister when the chronic negligence of Bruce landed in a host family, a knotty story that created layers of resentment and obligation that were only worsened over the decades.
Fahy still plays so slightly against the type here. The previous high -level roles of the interpreter, such as a member of magazine staff on “The Bold Type” or a woman satisfied on “The White Lotus”, are largely women who felt comfortable in the surrounding area. When the devon goes mainly under cover as a disciple of Michaela to keep an eye on Simone, Fahy can embody a friction between the real and simulated personalities of her character who is lovely to look at. Alcock, the Australian seller who broke out on “House of the Dragon”, shows the cracks that begin to form in the tense and autonomous facade of Simone. You can say when Simone’s striker, the clearer and more natural self starts to cross in response to Devon provocations, and the scenes where the two commercial accusations of abandonment have all the harsh reality that the rest of the Michaela bubble is lacking. “She makes me sad, Kiki,” said Simone to her boss, explaining why she never mentioned her sister. “I don’t want to be sad here.”
The two actors stand in Moore, a living legend whose previous television – the adaptation of Stephen King “Lisey’s Story” and the acerbic costume drama “Mary & George” – did not reach the public that his stature deserves. The scope of Netflix and the remarkable consumption, also absurd, exposed in “Sirens” give Moore his stronger chance to date to a projector similar to that of his peers Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, who have both embraced the small screen in recent years. Moore was scandally snubbed for her role in “May December” in 2023, and with “Sirens”, she takes a second crack to a fiercely defensive woman of her apparently idyllic but scandal life. (Peter met Michaela when he was still married to his first wife, whose disappearance is the subject of local gossip.)
There is nevertheless a difference between the vibey blur which creates an air of mystical and vagueness which obscures the key aspects of character and history. “Sirens” has a precise reading on Michaela’s relationship with each sister, no matter how little he is. Her extreme proximity to Simone, from which she sometimes sleeps the bed, is all the more disturbing not be sexual; Its clashes with Devon Crackle with animosity and insecurity on both sides. But Peter, and therefore Michaela’s marriage to him, never concentrates quite. His relaxed and relaxed behavior never follows a Titan in the industry; It is clearly intended to put the spectator to sleep, with Devon and Simone, in a false feeling of security, but a bad orientation does not work if it is not convincing in the first place. On the delicate effort to gradually develop Michaela from an antagonist in the form of a witch in a real person, her husband proves an obstacle.
Sometimes “sirens” can break his own fate. A current joke on the staff of the room complaining of Simone control of control of control in a group group strikes the caricatural, in particular since the domestic employees of the Kells – like the chief Patrice (Lauren Weedman) and the director of the house Jose (Felix Solis) – are largely comical figures, without the emotional complexity of Simone. And the problems of characterization of the kells make a cumulative toll, the conclusion of the landing series with less force than it could have if the couple made more sense as people, like Devon and Simone. Overall, the “sirens” simply have too much tone laces to all Among them to work, even if those who terrestrial create a single and extremely unpredictable energy. Viewers will nevertheless find themselves under the hypnotic taking of the series. The song of a mermaid does not have to be perfect to get stuck in your head.
The five episodes of “Sirens” now broadcast on Netflix.
