Lady in the Lake: 'brooding' murder-mystery casts 'a potent spell'

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".

What starts out looking like an "intricate murder-mystery" gradually builds into something more complex, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian: a snapshot of civil rights-era Baltimore; a study of racial prejudice and sexual oppression; and a "fearless aesthetic" experiment in which dream sequences, flashbacks and other devices are used to "flesh out" characters and questions. It adds up to a "masterly" drama, but it's slow to get going. "Give yourself time to digest it. We're not used to fare this rich. The love will come."

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It didn't for me, said Anita Singh in The Daily Telegraph. With its "top notch star", "high production values" and "lofty tone", the series screams "prestige". But "it's deathly slow, devoid of suspense", and is really "just a vehicle for Portman to look beautiful in a series of 1960s outfits".