LADY IN THE LAKE Review: Out of the Water, Into Your Nightmares

Who was that woman, and why did she die? And why are we compelled to know?

Lady in the Lake
The seven-episode series will make its global debut on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes on Friday, July 19, 2024, followed by new episodes every Friday through August 23, 2024..

First published in 2019, Lady in the Lake is a mystery novel by Laura Lippman that was inspired by the real-life deaths of two women who never met in 1969 Baltimore. Lippman, a former reporter and an eloquent writer, wove the two stories together, reportedly dealing with "themes of racism and misogyny in 1960s America," per Wikipedia.

Alma Har'el, an Israeli-American filmmaker, known for her documentaries as well as her feature debut, Honey Boy (2019), created the adaptation, wrote the first two episodes (and co-wrote others), and directed all seven episodes, bringing a vigorous, nightmarish vision to the show that feels strongly influenced by Lippman's ability to create distinctive characters and craft narrative surprises that make perfect sense in hindsight.

With a propensity for occasional, startling, POV closeups, Har'el recreates a distant world that is vividly realized. Really, it is two separate worlds that slowly and steadily bleed into one another.

The calm and steady voice of Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram) informs the viewer that she is the titular character and that she has questions about Maddie Schwarz (Natalie Portman) and the latter's motives for trying to, in effect, drag her out of the lake again for her own selfish purposes. The more we learn about Maddie, however, the more we see that she, too, is a victim of the men in her life and the patriarchal society in which she lives.

The mystery plays out exquisitely well over the course of seven episodes, as we get to know all the characters better, but there is certainly more than enough food for thought and mysteries to untangle in the first two episodes, which debut together. Indeed, I think Apple TV+'s release strategy, with subsequent episodes releasing weekly, will benefit the show. After each episode I wanted to watch more, not only because of the mystery, but because of the characters and the milieu that is depicted.

Har'el moves the beginning of the series to a few years earlier in the 1960s, which, if anything, heightens the unbearable tension and rancid discrimination that the Black community in Baltimore faced during that time period. Maddie Schwarz' ambivalent personal feelings, as a Jewish woman, married to a stoic, stone-hearted man (Brett Gelman) for 20 years, and raising a furious son (Noah Jupe), who treats his mother with barely-veiled contempt, come to the fore early in the series.

Maddie and Cleo are the moody yet dynamic leading characters, along with a police detective who is drawn to Maddie (Y'lan Neo); Cleo's husband Slappy (Byron Bowers); menacing gangster Shell Gordon (Wood Harris), who has an evil smile; high-strung suspect Stephan (Dylan Arnold); and reporter Bob Bauer (Pruitt Taylor Vince), among other memorable players.

The show is well-cast, the period touches are very much appreciated; the production details are spot-on. As good as all performances and production values are, what's even more impressive is the writing and directing, which together paint a target on a corrupt and disturbing time in American history. Then it all gets blown up, so to speak, and right on time, with excellent portrayals by Nathalie Portman and Moses Ingram, who both make their characters come to life.