Secrets and lies: This ABC thriller will make you look at your mother's group differently
The darker side of new motherhood, once barely whispered about, has proven a fruitful starting point for any number of psychological parenting thrillers in which mothers fall under suspicion – think Jenna Coleman in The Cry, or Jessica De Gouw in The Secrets She Keeps.
This six-part drama, adapted from Sarah Vaughan's novel by Ruth Fowler (who created 2022 corporate thriller Rules of the Game), stars Diane Kruger as Jess, an American living in the comfortable bosom of the middle-class UK, with a young son and a newborn daughter. The series takes the distressing premise of implied post-natal depression and spins outwards to give a gripping account of judgment, betrayal, mistrust and a burning ethical dilemma.
The model of neo-maternal perfection in her circle of female friends, whose children were raised alongside one another, from cloth nappies to organic rusks, Jess would seem the last mother to screw up even the tiniest dietary detail. But when she presents her baby, Betsey, to the emergency ward with an unexplained bruise, questions must be asked. And who should be the attending doctor? One of Jess' closest friends, Liz (Jo Joyner).
It's here that the narrative goes nuclear in a manner not unlike The Slap – the expected chain of events shattering their friendship and dividing the community, with fingers swiftly pointed in both directions, mothers of all descriptions being so easy to blame.
An interview device more commonly used in mockumentaries and reality programs breaks the fourth wall and draws us back to the victim – baby Betsey – and encourages reflection on the conflicting moralities of the situation. While it can initially be jarring to be faced with Liz in scrubs, explaining her side of the story to camera, these interludes serve to ground the swirling emotional fallout.
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As the unthinkable is investigated, it turns out that – shock! – no mother is perfect. Or father, for that matter. The ensemble (which includes Patrick Balardi, Shelley Conn, Ben Bailey Smith, JJ Field, Stephen Campbell Moore and Emily Taaffe) explores the herd response to such a bombshell dropped in the middle of a seemingly innocuous and untouchable group. How an atmosphere of fear and accusation permeates this polite society is intriguing to watch.
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