His & Hers (Netflix) - Review 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

THEMES of loss, toxic female relationships and family secrets permeate throughout glossy Netflix thriller His & Hers, an adaptation of Alice Feeney’s 2020 bestseller.

Yet while dealing with some heavy issues, this starry whodunit emerges as more of a slick guilty pleasure (akin to a page-turning summer read), rather than anything approaching the gravitas of a Mare of Easttown or Task.

That’s not to deride; merely to reset expectations given that His & Hers also boasts a top drawer headline cast (headed by Marvel stars Jon Bernthal and Tessa Thompson) and writer/director/executive producer William Oldroyd (Lady Macbeth).

Picking up as a bloody female body lies strewn across a rainswept car deep in the woods, the story follows the subsequent investigation into her death by small-town detective Jack Harper (Bernthal) and steely former TV news anchor Anna (Thompson), who is eying a career revival.

Jack and Anna are married but estranged - the result of the loss of their child. And both quickly emerge to have reasons for potentially wanting the victim, Rachel Hopkins (Jamie Tisdale), dead.

But so too do many of the town’s other inhabitants, including Rachel’s husband (who possesses his own guilty secret), and several of the people her and her friends bullied during their high school reign of terror.

Indeed, Rachel emerges as something of a manipulative and controlling bitch, the worst of her high school clique, which included Anna.

Oldroyd’s screenplay certainly has fun layering in the twists and piling on the suspicions surrounding its central characters, thereby maintaining a decent amount of tension and giving its cast plenty to do.

Whether or not you sympathise with many of them is a moot point, as the emphasis largely seems to be on watching them backstab and manipulate each other as, slowly, past pains are revealed and motivations become clear.

Indeed, the most endearing character of the lot is arguably Sunita Mani’s rookie detective Priya, whose dogged pursuit of the truth gives her an unlikely edge (even over her more compromised colleagues) and a broader appeal.

Of the main two, Thompson gets perhaps the biggest range of emotions to play with, veering from jealous rivalry to manipulative career climber, wounded wife and mother and caring daughter. But Bernthal revels in his own brand of moody intensity as a man falling apart at the seams and increasingly unable to make coherent decisions.

Sure, the plight of both characters is heightened by the increasingly absurd plot turns, with the twists arriving thicker and faster with each passing episode (and not always making complete sense).

But Oldroyd doesn’t go for complete schlock or thrills, occasionally slowing things down enough to allow his primary characters brief moments of pause to assess the psychological effects of losing a child: there is one particularly affecting scene between Bernthal and Thompson that tugs at the heart-strings, even offering an insight into what might have been had the whole series opted for a more restrained approach.

Alas, the emphasis is more on ensuring the series is bingeable and so for every moment of pause, there’s another revelation or another corpse to kickstart the momentum.

It’s enjoyable enough and the two final twists are decent, which makes the overall journey worthwhile even if some of the plot machinations occasionally feel tacky and/or unsettlingly nasty in a sexual way.

It probably won’t linger too long in the memory either, which given the talent involved and the potential in the story perhaps feels like a missed opportunity.

But in an era where we’re bombarded with streaming choices, this is a capable thriller that keeps you guessing and passes the time efficiently.