My first glimpse of The Perfect Couple wasn’t Elin Hilderbrand’s novel, but the teaser trailer for the Netflix limited series that promised a lavish whodunit among a family who all, unsurprisingly, had a motive to kill. The stacked cast with Nicole Kidman is easily one of the reasons to watch the series, even if it bore some resemblance to another 2024 mystery series, Apples Never Fall. But when the Netflix series finally arrived, there was something obvious I picked up on from the first episode. The whodunit behind The Perfect Couple’s inciting crime wasn’t going to be as compelling as uncovering how messy the Winbury family was.
I noticed too that Netflix was promoting this series as “Big Little Lies meets TheWhite Lotus.” Most of the time, comparisons like this are a marketing ploy, and they don’t hold any accuracy, which is the case for The Perfect Couple. It’s very different from those HBO dramas, and this is especially clear when the opening credits come on and out of nowhere — it’s a dance number. Nicole Kidman’s piercing glare is nowhere to be found as she’s spinning and throwing her hands up along with the rest of the cast. Even after finishing the series, I don’t think I’m over the confusion the opening credits have given me, and what makes that sequence even more wild is learning how the show’s director had to fight to get it made when most of the cast opposed it.
‘The Perfect Couple’ Opening Credits Work for Me More Than They Should
Even if Netflix hadn’t tried to lure in new viewers with comparisons to the HBO dramas, it isn’t hard to notice how The Perfect Couple is influenced by them. Starring Big Little Lies alum Nicole Kidman and White Lotus Season 2 standout Meghann Fahy, it explores how rich folks unravel when their elite bubble bursts. For the most part, this is all the Netflix series shares with those HBO dramas, because The Perfect Couple is cheesier than either of them, which is why the opening credits oddly work more than they should.
On a sun-lit Nantucket beach, the cast joins in a flash to dance to a Meghan Trainor song, one suitably named “Criminals,” for a sequence that is overtly cheerful. It’s depicted as a celebration (possibly) during the rehearsal dinner before a body is discovered the following morning and family secrets are exposed. Even before I made it halfway through the first episode, I knew if I wanted more of Big Little Lies or White Lotus, The Perfect Couple wouldn’t do that, all because of the opening credits. The ocean motifs in the addictive intro of Big Little Lies represent the inner lives of its central women. The anxiety-ridden score in White Lotus promises the unhinged stories that will erupt. These are two of the best TV opening sequences of the past couple of years that have stayed with me. In contrast, the opening credits of The Perfect Couple play out like viewers have been dropped into a dance party without any warning.
I’m Still Trying to Make Sense of ‘The Perfect Couple’s Opening Credits
The camera work captures everything cleanly with wide and medium shots, while the editing isn’t too rushed. Nothing spells out “danger,” there aren’t colorful dresses that are blood-stained in the opening of The Perfect Couple. Other than a credit for Netflix and the show’s title, no cast names are seen, further establishing this dance number as not a typical intro and more like a scene that has suddenly been inserted. Some viewers may hit the “skip” button fast, but others may just enjoy it for what it is. While I was watching the series, I started to see how this sequence represented a key theme.
Each time I saw the opening credits appear, it became a reminder of the artificial happiness within the Winbury family. At the head of bickering siblings and a cheating husband is Kidman’s matriarch Greer, who has carefully built a facade for the public to eat up on how her family is viewed, which gradually dissolves as the police investigation gets going. What sells this idea even more, is how the cast themselves detested filming the dance number. Director Susanne Bier fought to get it made, telling IndieWire, “First of all, it’s going to be really joyful and fun, but it’s also going to suggest to the audience, ’Hey, you are allowed to laugh here. You don’t have to think this is very dark and very serious because it’s not.’” She had one ally to help her along.
Nicole Kidman and Most of ‘The Perfect Couple’s Cast Didn’t Want To Dance
Liev Schreiber, who played Greer’s cheating husband Tag, was up for anything. If you watched Schrieber in the gritty Ray Donovan or recognized the actor as the doomed Cotton Weary from the Scream franchise, his performance in The Perfect Couple would be one heck of a surprise. Not only did he sing more than once — that scene in Episode 5 is cringe-worthy in the best way possible — Schrieber didn’t share the hilarious excuses his fellow cast members tried to back out of the opening sequence. In a Variety article, Kidman and Fahy, along with Ishaan Khatter and Dakota Fanning, had a group chat to figure out a way to stop the dancing from happening with concerns based on character motivations.
Kidman complained she had on a tight dress and thought Greer would watch rather than join in on the dance floor. Schreiber went on to add, “The entire cast had a mutiny about this idea except for me, I was already in my trailer practicing the dance moves. I just, like, dancing, and I was kinda disappointed when it came out that I’m not in it more because I thought I did it really well.” What I picked up on as I held off from skipping is that viewers don’t know the context of the opening credits, whether it existed in-show or not. That’s part of the fun and the weirdness. But the original plans could have more wild — yes, that is possible.
‘The Perfect Couple’s Opening Credits Proves the Show Should’ve Been More Fun
Dancing was originally in the script as part of a nightmare Amelia (Eve Hawson) has about her murdered friend Merritt (Fahy), seen in a later episode. While the nightmare was removed, Bier loved the concept of including dance in The Perfect Couple, and it became the last thing the cast shot. Choreographed by Charm La’Donna, who is also Meghan Trainor’s choreographer, the cast accepted doing the sequence and Bier shot it within 90 minutes. But then, the series had another surprise for viewers. During the last episode, the dance sequence repeats at the end, and this time, director Susanne Bier joins the cast before the end credits roll.
I just thought: good for her. More of the silly mood from the opening credits of The Perfect Couple should have been dispersed throughout the series. There are moments, but it isn’t until Episode 6, the finale, that it lets loose. Greer has a monologue that lets Nicole Kidman portray an exasperated woman who is done with fabricating the “perfect” image of her family or herself. She delivers one truth bomb after another, then has to specifically confirm to her family that she did not hire a hitman to silence Merritt. It’s a much funnier scene than it seems it might be.
The laughs the final episode got out of me were all based on the character relationships and Greer’s rigid personality that has been well established; it’s just unfortunate the series couldn’t have matched this or even lived up to that opening dance number. It isn’t hyperstylized like the intro of Peacemaker, and it’s not as iconic as Jenna Ortega’s strange choreography on Wednesday, which remains Netflix’s best dancing scene from any of its shows. Still, viewers can watch The Perfect Couple let the Winbury family dance their spoiled hearts out on the screen before everything falls apart.
The Perfect Couple is streaming on Netflix.
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