Often, a project’s success has a lot to do with who’s at the helm. Director Susanne Bier, who hails from Denmark, is someone who never disappoints with her movies and television shows. She has brought some of the most exciting productions to our screens in recent years. She won an Academy Award for the 2010 Danish film, In a Better World, and has honed her craft on thrillers such as The Night Manager in 2016 and the smash hit, Bird Box, in 2018. Because of her impressive work on these projects, she is the first female director to win an Oscar, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a European Film Award. She has also collaborated with tons of fabulous actors (like the impressive cast of the 2022 Showtime series, The First Lady).
Bier’s latest project is the Netflix hit, The Perfect Couple, which just came out on September 5. The series stars Nicole Kidman, but this isn’t Bier’s first time working with her. The director also worked with Kidman on the 2020 HBO psychological drama, The Undoing. This project would earn Bier a Director’s Guild nomination for her contributions and provide another entry to her already illustrious resume. The series is a fascinating, suspenseful story that should be next on your binge list if you have just finished The Perfect Couple.
‘The Undoing’ Is a Twisty Thrill Ride
The six-episode drama follows Grace Fraser (Kidman), whose picture-perfect life is turned upside down when her husband, Jonathan (played masterfully by Hugh Grant), is suspected of murder. At first, it seems like Grace has everything going for her. She’s a successful psychologist, married to an oncologist; they have a beautiful New York City brownstone apartment that many would kill for, and their son attends an elite school. They have all the trappings of wealth that are supposed to make them enviable, but instead, it makes them seem shallow and out-of-touch. In the first episode, Grace runs into a mysterious woman named Elena (Matilda De Angelis) at several different locations. The next day, Elena’s body is discovered in her artist’s studio. She has been brutally murdered, and her young son (who attends the same school as Grace’s son) is the one who finds her. Jonathan is named as a potential suspect because he was having an affair with Elena, and Grace’s world quickly begins to unravel. She goes on long, meandering walks around the city at night and has visions of Elena and what might have happened to her.
The action unfolds as more is revealed about the circumstances surrounding Elena’s murder. Is it possible that Jonathan (who has devoted his life to saving people) could actually be the culprit? Grace is also acting suspiciously, but is that because she knows something about the murder or because her life is falling apart? Kidman plays Grace as a woman who tries really hard to maintain a serene exterior, but she is really experiencing a frenzied panic all the time on the inside. Some of the most electrifying scenes take place when Jonathan is on trial. His lawyer, Haley Fitzgerald (Noma Dumezweni, who steals every scene she’s in) tries valiantly to defend him, and the tension only continues to build in each episode as the mysteries intensifies. It isn’t clear what exactly happened to Elena until the very last episode.
Susanne Bier Pulls Off a Fascinating Drama With ‘The Undoing’
The entire cast is stellar (including the late Donald Sutherland as Grace’s father). And as good as Kidman is in this role, it’s really Grant’s chance to shine. His character is both charming and devious, and you’re never quite sure whether he’s telling the truth or not. Grace and Jonathan’s son, Henry (Noah Jupe), is also an intriguing character who holds some secrets of his own. But it is because of Bier that the series has such staying power. Besides being a taut, psychological study that keeps the viewer guessing, there are also tons of interesting shots (especially when Grace goes on those long walks around the city) that pull the viewer into this world. The cinematography that Bier employs also helps tell the story; there’s a mystery and magnetism to the city that allows the setting to be as magical as it is dark and brooding. Whether Grace is attending a formal party with vast displays of wealth or escaping to her brownstone, the location and mood is vital to the scenes. Even when the characters flee to their beach house, there’s still an underlying, unsettling feeling that none of them are safe from the danger encroaching on them.
Bier is also inherently skilled at depicting huge displays of emotion, of which there are many in this series. Even though everyone tries to hold it together, tensions boil over in captivating scenes filled with anger, sadness, betrayal, and more. Although these characters are not exactly relatable (hopefully), the feelings they’re experiencing are. Bier’s ability to bring out these huge emotions without overpowering the action of the story is a credit to her tendency to create a balance within storytelling. But at the same time, Bier knew she still wanted the series to be a nail-biting adventure. She said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, “I felt that making it more of a thriller would allow for the character stories but would give the characters a very clear direction.” Her choices resulted in the perfect marriage of compelling characters with a true whodunnit mystery.
When The Undoing aired in 2020, word-of-mouth quickly spread about how good it was. There was a lot of discussion about Kidman’s wardrobe (she wears stunning, long coats in almost every scene), and the show’s twists and turns inspired plenty of chatter on social media. There were also a lot of comparisons to David E. Kelley‘s other HBO prestige series, Big Little Lies, which also starred Kidman. But The Undoing was the first HBO show to gain viewership every week throughout the season, and it was HBO’s most-watched show of the year. It also cemented Bier as the go-to director for portraying problematic wealthy people getting caught up in the consequences of their secrets (Ã la her future project, The Perfect Couple). There’s no official word on what Bier’s next project will be (she’s returning only as an executive producer for the second season of The Night Manager), but The Undoing is a perfect way to explore more of Bier’s immense talents and get caught up in a titillating psychological thriller.
All episodes of T he Undoing are available to stream on Max in the U.S.
Watch on Max
