We’re in the grip of a new wave of Kidmania.
Fresh from the rapturous reception afforded Babygirl at the Venice Film Festival, Nicole Kidman is back on our screens in new six-part murder-thriller series The Perfect Couple. Adapted from a 2018 bestseller by Elin Hilderbrand – aka ‘the queen of beach reads’ (cc New York magazine) – it stars the Aussie actress, Dakota Fanning, Liev Schreiber, Eve Hewson, Billy Howle, Meghann Fahy and Midsommar’s Jack Reynor in a glossy Netflix binge. Resistance is probably futile: sooner or later you will be joining everyone else among the grand piles of the Nantucket shoreline to find out exactly what kind of shady business these good-looking people are up too. Clue: it involves murder most horrid.
Those olde-worlde clapboard, shingle-style houses and their luxe interiors are among the drawcards for a series that’s been hailed as one of the guilty pleasures of the year. But not all of them were filmed exactly where you might think. Here’s where director Susanne Bier (Bird Box) and her cameras headed to capture the show’s moneyed milieu.
What happens in ‘The Perfect Couple’
Kidman plays super-rich and successful romance novelist Greer Garrison Winbury, long and supposedly happily married to Tag (Liev Schreiber) and living on an exclusive Massachusetts island. One of their sons, Benji (On Chesil Beach’s Billy Howle), is about to marry Eve Hewson’s less privileged Amelia Sacks. Greer is very unhappy about a rich boy/poor girl scenario that would not make it into one of her novels. Livid enough, in fact, to be incredibly polite to her family and throw the kind of dream wedding that will surely only shame all concerned.
That’s the idea, at least, until some thoughtless person gets murdered. Dream turns to nightmare as everyone on the island is suddenly a possible murderer, including Greer’s other sons, Thomas (Reynor) and Will (Sam Nivola), Thomas’s pregnant wife Abby (Fanning), and Amelia’s bestie Merritt (The White Lotus’ Meghann Fahy). Maybe even wedding planner Roger (Tim Bagley). Hey, if you can organise a finger buffet, you can organise a capital crime.
Where was The Perfect Couple filmed?
Both the Netflix series and Elin Hilderbrand’s novel are set in Nantucket, a picture book island off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The island is a two hour 15 minute ferry ride from the mainland and a tricky place to transport an entire cast and crew, though. Instead, the Winburys’ massive mansion, Summerland, was filmed in Chatham, Cape Cod on the mainland. The Cape Cod landscape, complete with endless hydrangeas, was a perfect match for the family’s expansive grounds.
‘Because the majority of The Perfect Couple was filmed on location in Chatham, the production [has] an authentic Cape and island feel,’ Hilderbrand tells Boston.com.
Some of the show was shot on Nantucket, however. The second unit filmed around the island, including at the famous Bartlett’s Farm. ‘Hollywood [stunt pilot] Fred North took overhead footage in his helicopter, and he later messaged me and said it was one of the most beautiful places he’s ever shot,’ says Hilderbrand.
Check out the series trailer below or head to Netflix to watch all six episodes now.
The best movies and TV shows coming to Disney+, Max, Hulu and more in September.