The Girlfriend: irresistibly twisty drama starring Robin Wright

Robin Wright, Laurie Davidson and Olivia Cooke in The Girlfriend — Robin Wright, Laurie Davidson and Olivia Cooke star in bingeworthy show

(Image credit: Amazon Prime)

“The Girlfriend” – Amazon Prime’s latest “deliciously unhinged” drama – is about a mother whose relationship with her son is just a bit too close for comfort, said Anita Singh in The Daily Telegraph. Laura (played by Robin Wright, who also directs) is an impossibly rich American art gallery owner who lives in a fabulous pad in London, complete with pool.

She dotes on her only son Daniel (Laurie Davidson), who has just qualified as a surgeon, and the two share a relationship that may well give viewers “the ick”. When Daniel brings home gorgeous new girlfriend Cherry Laine (Olivia Cooke), his mother’s “expression doesn’t change, but we can all see the horror in her eyes” – and she duly starts to compete with Cherry for Daniel’s attention.

Laura is convinced that working-class Cherry isn’t who she says she is, said Rebecca Nicholson in the Financial Times, and that her motives in dating Daniel are not pure. For her part, Cherry is “defensive, cagey and sure that Laura is out to sabotage her relationship” because she doesn’t come from her “elite world” – and as a result she is, in fact, not being straight about her identity. So who do we believe? That events play out from both women’s perspectives adds to the fun, in a twisty, glossy six-parter that is ”more subtle in its understanding of social and financial tensions” than its package suggests. “A guilty pleasure? Probably,” said Tim Glanfield in The Times. Far-fetched, and even bonkers? Perhaps. But this is compelling stuff. “You’ll want to binge the lot.”