Laura (Robin Wright) is living the perfect life. She runs a posh art gallery, which appears to be the profession of choice for rich women, seemingly requiring no special skills or talent. Laura’s husband, Howard (Waleed Zuaiter), is a rich hotelier who loves her enough to go along with Laura’s idea of an open marriage. Laura’s son, Daniel (Laurie Davidson), is perfect too — kind, sensitive, funny, and a doctor to boot.
The Girlfriend
Season 1
Episodes: 6
Runtime: 45–52 minutes
Directors: Robin Wright, Andrea Harkin
Starring: Robin Wright, Olivia Cooke, Laurie Davidson, Waleed Zuaiter, Tanya Moodie, Shalom Brune-Franklin, Leo Suter, Karen Henthorn, Francesca Corney, Ben Miles, Marina Bye, Anna Chancellor
Storyline: A mother is suspicious of her son’s too-perfect girlfriend
All that changes when Daniel brings his girlfriend, Cherry (Olivia Cooke), home. Cherry, who works at a realtor’s office, breathes a different air from the rarefied one people in Laura’s circle inhale. Soon, battle lines are drawn between Laura and Cherry.
Is Laura jealous and controlling or genuinely fearful of Cherry’s influence on Daniel? Is Cherry really evil, hiding some horrid secret from her past, or is she just a calculating social climber (which is not such a crime), looking for labels and love?
The Girlfriend tries to answer these questions over six episodes of exquisite music and blindingly beautiful locations. There are some lovely aerial shots of London. The mouth-watering houses and sundry spaces, including the butcher’s, make you want to hare it to Old Blighty in a trice.
Based on Michelle Frances’s debut novel, The Girlfriend is watchable thanks to Wright and Cooke’s amazing, invested performances, which force you to watch them and not the glaring plot holes and the generally unlikeable characters.
Daniel is feeble, and it is surprising that two strong women like Laura and Cherry are fighting over him, when the smarter play would have been for both to dump him!
We keep hearing of some dreadful secret in Cherry’s past, but that is not properly dissected. While the technique of showing the events from Laura’s and Cherry’s perspective is interesting, why is the crucial detail in Cherry’s past not shown from her perspective? We hear of her evil deeds from every other sources but Cherry.
The show is definitely on Laura’s side even though some of the stuff she does is plain bonkers. While we have a vague idea of Cherry’s and Laura’s motivations, the others are mere cutouts, spouting exposition or filling the frame as needed, including Laura’s friend, Isabella (Tanya Moodie), and her daughter, Brigitte (Shalom Brune-Franklin), Laura’s artist girlfriend, Lillith (Anna Chancellor), and Cherry’s mum, Tracey (Karen Henthorn).
Everything comes apart in the sixth and final episode in a manner that will have one’s eyes roll right out of one’s head. A doctor, that too one training to be a trauma surgeon, not performing CPR on a drowning victim, a phone lying undiscovered under a piece of furniture for over a year and charging immediately to reveal a video message, are just some of the annoying, inexplicable details.
The Girlfriend is one of those immediately forgettable binges that crowd our screens, where you can be happy as a clam looking at lovely houses, clothes, places, and people and forget about them the minute the screen fades to black or the next suggested preview comes on in the requisite 18 seconds.
The Girlfriend currently streams on Amazon Prime Video
Published – September 13, 2025 04:12 pm IST
