Natalie Portman gives a "scene-stealing" performance in "Lady in the Lake", a seven-part period thriller adapted for Apple TV+ from Laura Lippman's 2019 bestseller, said Ed Power in The Irish Times. Loosely based on real events, it is about a Jewish mother in 1960s Baltimore who is "so distressed by the disappearance of a child that she leaves her husband, and sets off in search of the girl herself".
The drama "isn't a fun watch: it has a nightmarish quality that occasionally verges on the supernatural"; and its slow pace, "murky camera work and mumbled dialogue" won't appeal to all. But it makes for "brooding, surreal viewing", and ultimately casts "a potent spell".
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