‘Lady in the Lake’ Review: Bland And Uninspired

Even Oscar winner Natalie Portman can’t save Apple TV+’s latest miniseries, the crime thriller Lady in the Lake.

Following up a fantastic performance in Todd Hayne’s May December, Natalie Portman’s (Black Swan, Star Wars prequel trilogy) latest project, Lady in the Lake, has just finished a seven-episode run at Apple TV+. 

Lady in the Lake follows Maddie Schwartz (Portman) as she ditches her old life, her abusive husband (Brett Gelman) and her home to make a new life for herself as an investigative journalist. She begins to obsess over two separate murders, and as the mystery begins to unravel, so does her psyche. 

The show blends two different storylines, with one following Maddie, and the other following Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram). A show such as this would normally be able to tackle such a problem, but the show juggles too many plot elements and threads becoming convoluted, and boring as well. The show frames itself as a mystery but doesn’t trust itself, or the audience, to dive into the truth behind these murders, leaving the show to run in circles and the lead character to make no progress. 

To make matters worse, the show is so awfully structured that many fans online aren’t aware that the series is seven episodes long, compared to the typical six. That being said, at least those viewers did not have to sit through a rushed exposition-heavy seventh episode like I had to. The show is slow to get going, and there certainly was potential regarding the plot, but unfortunately, it went in a direction that was predictable and most importantly, uninteresting. You can tell that writer-director Alma Har’el either ran out of time to enact her vision while adapting Laura Lippman’s novel of the same name. 

The show is pretty decent outside of the plot and pacing, with performances from Natalie Portman, Josiah Cross, David Corenswet, Mikey Madison, Dylan Arnold and Pruitt Taylor Vince compelling me to power through and not drop the series. Moses Ingram, who serves as second lead on the show, is pretty good for the most part, but the direction of her character does not allow her to give a fantastic performance. A part of me wonders if Lupita Nyong’o could have pulled it off slightly better, like initially envisioned. 

The score here steals the show for me. Marcus Norris is a pretty unknown composer, who’s only worked on film and television projects a handful of times but his work here is masterful. The music gives off a sense of intrigue that has the feel of the time period of the show, as well as being heavy, given the weight of the plot. 

Lady in the Lake struggles to justify its existence, with a plot that doesn’t demand being seen and a slow-burning mystery with an unsatisfying conclusion. Even a good performance from Academy Award winner Natalie Portman couldn’t save this from mediocrity. 

Lady in the Lake was created by Alma Har’el and stars Natalie Portman, Moses Ingram, David Corenswet, Josiah Cross, Mikey Madison, Dylan Arnold and Pruitt Taylor Vince. All seven episodes of the series are now streaming on Apple TV+. 

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