The SERIELAND recommendation: "The Undoing" on OCS

This week, SERIELAND's algorithm, Margaux Baralon, recommends "The Undoing", a six-part series aired on OCS with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant.

Alternately intimate drama, fast-paced thriller and social chronicle, fiction is well served by the staging of the line by Susanne Bier, Danish director.

Grace and Jonathan Fraser look like the perfect couple in the new series

, airing on OCS.

She is a renowned couples therapist who rescues sinking loves, he an equally renowned oncologist who saves children from cancer.

And when they don't save anyone, these two love each other and, along with their son Henry, form the typical bourgeois New York family.

All this is not material to make a good series, everything has to collapse.

Intimate drama and social criticism

The collapse will come, violently, with the sordid murder of Elena Alvès, the mother of a school friend of Henry's.

At the same time, Jonathan Fraser disappears.

And Grace must suddenly face the facts: of her life so perfect, of her certainties, of her happiness, there is nothing left.

Her loving, loyal husband is the prime suspect in a murder investigation.

But

is far from being reduced to a detective intrigue, even if it adopts some, intelligently but without reinventing them, all the codes (clues distilled over time, unbearable end-of-episode cliffhangers, revelations on the account- gout) before also turning to the series of trials (painful repetitions with a pugnacious lawyer in addition).

The series has its eye more on intimate drama and fierce social criticism.

By auscultating the collapse of a couple,

scratches the veneer of a bourgeoisie which no longer has any of the discreet charm that Buñuel recognized in it in the 1970s. These rich people are vain, vile, bordering on the pathetic as they are convinced of the normality of an existence where the education of children in private schools costs 50,000 dollars a year. 

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The staging makes fun of this generalized hypocrisy, twisting bourgeois codes to make them frightening.

The strings of a Vivaldi opera seem to creak in the soundtrack, as the characters choke on their luxurious clothes.

The work of Susanne Bier, Danish director, is admirable here.

Specializing in shot variations to capture the privacy of her protagonists, she skilfully cuts out faces, isolates furtive glances. 

The Undoing

is also an opportunity, and it is never superfluous, to remember that Nicole Kidman is one of the greatest actresses of her generation.

We are also pleased to see Hugh Grant continue his transformation into roles other than those of comedy in the universe of the series, he who had already shown in

.

But pretty scores are also reserved for supporting roles, including Lily Rabe and Donald Sutherland, respectively best friend and father of Grace.