Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks star in the eight-episode Amazon series “The Better Sister,” about a wealthy woman and the estranged sister who comes barreling back into her world when her husband is murdered and her teenage stepson is charged with the crime.
Twenty-five years ago, this adaptation of Alafair Burke’s novel would have been an Ashley Judd movie with a tight, hour-45 running time: Part thriller and part mystery, as a woman comes to terms with the lies behind her upscale life. That kind of thing can be fun, if not especially deep, which is why streaming’s tendency to expand stories over multiple episodes undercuts the propulsion needed to keep everything frothy and moving with enough economy that you’re less likely to question whether any of it makes sense.
Biel plays Chloe, the impeccable, girl-bossified editor of a magazine who seemingly has it all. It’s a very thin characterization, but it does convey her supposed flawlessness. She’s married to Adam (Corey Stoll), a corporate lawyer, and is stepmother to Adam’s withdrawn teenage son Ethan (Maxwell Acee Donovan), but there’s a secret: Chloe is also Ethan’s aunt.
Adam’s previous wife was Chloe’s older sister, Nicky (Banks), whose marriage to Adam fell apart — and her parental rights were severed — when she was found face-down in the pool one day, zonked out on pills and booze, and her toddler son nearly drowned. But that’s too sordid a story for Chloe’s public image, so she’s portrayed herself simply as the stepmom who stepped up.
She and Adam travel in high-end circles, befitting their income and ambitions. Their New York apartment has a wraparound terrace. There’s also a house in the Hamptons, and that’s where Chloe finds Adam dead in a pool of blood. What the hell happened? Suddenly, Nicky, who Chloe has erased from her life, is back in the picture and causing havoc as the police investigate the murder and zero in on Ethan, who had tensions with his father. That’s one plot line.
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The more central (and interesting) narrative is the complicated relationship between Chloe and Nicky. Like Meghann Fahy in “Sirens,” Banks is playing a very actressy version of messy and down market, chewing the scenery as a working class addict who is crassness personified next to her sister, who oozes perfection, right down to her razor-sharp bobbed haircut. Kudos to Biel for bucking the trend of long, beachy waves; breaking from that homogeneity is refreshing to see on screen. Biel looks amazing in that bob and it also speaks to who Chloe is, a woman putting intense effort to an idealized exterior meant to mask a more unpleasant upbringing. Chloe’s ruse works for the most part. Even her ultra-fit physique telegraphs competence and control; it doesn’t matter that everything is falling apart behind closed doors because people rarely look past the surface. I’m focusing on the visuals because they’re doing more than Biel’s performance, which is serviceable if not especially gripping.
Adapted by Olivia Milch (daughter of David Milch) and Regina Corrado (whose credits include David Milch’s “Deadwood”), the series keeps you on your toes in terms of the whodunit, while plying you with the kind of aspirational lifestyle content that is so prevalent on television right now. No one is trustworthy. Is Chloe being played? By whom? By everyone? It’s hard to care because she’s presented as such a vacuous picture of faux feminist perfection at the outset.
Chloe’s patron saint is a glamorously formidable, well-connected power player embodied by a terrific and entertainingly slippery Lorraine Toussaint, who treats the role like an exercise in capturing something akin to “Dynasty”-era Joan Collins. I love everything about the performance. Is she Chloe’s friend or her worst nightmare? Then there’s Adam’s cravat-wearing boss, played by an equally slippery Matthew Modine. The cops keep turning up (an itchy Kim Dickens and the more watchful Bobby Naderi) and casting aspersions. And what are we to make of Ethan’s attorney (Gloria Reuben), who seems like she’s on the up and up, but is also close with a colleague of Adam’s (Gabriel Sloyer), and maybe that’s suspicious.
The dynamic between the sisters may be predictable, but it works. When Chloe gets an iced organic matcha, Nicky gives her a look like, “Are you for real?” Their bickering, at turns tense and mildly funny, is where the show is at its best, when Biel and Banks aren’t being asked to play types, but to connect on a more fundamental level.
“The Better Sister” — 2 stars (out of 4)
Where to watch: Amazon
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.
