We Were Liars, review: This po-faced YA drama makes me yearn for the fun teen comedies of the 1980s

Telegraph

18-06-2025

Suspicions that teenage dramas aren't what they used to be are confirmed near the end of We Were Liars, Amazon Prime Video's glossy adaptation of E Lockhart's bestselling YA novel. One of the characters strips to his shirt, underpants and socks and dances around the house to Old Time Rock'n'Roll by Bob Seger. It's an homage to Tom Cruise in Risky Business, and an unfortunate reminder that dramas aimed at teenagers were once fun but are now a humour-free zone.
Risky Business, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Footloose – in the 1980s, all of these took seriously the business of being young and overwhelmed by feelings, but they also made you laugh. We Were Liars, on the other hand, is a po-faced thriller about characters who are privileged and bland, soundtracked by the kind of acoustic dirges that used to blight John Lewis Christmas adverts. The Risky Business scene is so out of place that I had to rewatch just to check I hadn't imagined it being there.
The central mystery concerns Cadence Sinclair, who hails from a super-wealthy family and is suffering from amnesia after being found half-drowned on the beach. Oddly, her family knows what traumatic event caused this, but refuses to tell her. The setting has promise: the Sinclairs are 'American royalty' who summer at their Kennedy-style compound, a private island near Martha's Vineyard, where they vie for the attention – and largesse – of Cadence's domineering grandfather. Unfortunately, it takes itself far too seriously, and reaching The Big Twist at the end will require you to sit through hours of angst and switching timelines.
We are introduced to the characters through a pretentious voiceover, and I've no idea if the lines are taken from the original book or are the work of scriptwriter Scarlett Curtis (daughter of Richard), but they're pass-the-sick-bucket awful: 'My name is Cadence Sinclair Eastman. I was once strength and promise and spun gold.' Cousin Mirren is 'sugar, effort and constant curiosity'. The romantic hero starts out as 'fireflies, mischief and old books' but grows into 'contemplation, enthusiasm, ambition and strong coffee'. Argh, make it stop!
References to King Lear and fairytales are laid on thick. At least it's pleasant to look at, like a Duchess of Sussex moodboard come to life. At one point, I'm pretty sure I saw a rainbow vegetable platter. The details of their Succession -lite lifestyle are the only enjoyable aspect. The family pose for colour-coordinated photoshoots wearing 'ocean hues and neutrals' from Ralph Lauren. They organise lemon hunts – like Easter Egg hunts, but the adults and kids look for hidden lemons, and whoever collects the most wins a multi-million dollar house.
Harris Sinclair (David Morse) tests the loyalty of his three daughters, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy clones who are variously planning a 'divorce cleanse', recovering from drug addiction through meditation, and sleeping with Salty Dan, the local boathand. As everyone in the Sinclair family is sun-kissed and blonde, it may take you a couple of episodes to differentiate between these people, although one of the actresses, Mamie Gummer, is better than the others; perhaps it's genetic, because Gummer is the daughter of Meryl Streep.
The focus is not on these three but on their offspring. The novel was a hit when it was published a decade ago but has found a new fanbase on TikTok, where readers swoon over the love affair between Cadence (Emily Alyn Lind, a dead ringer for The White Lotus's Aimee Lou Wood), and Gat Patil (Shubham Maheshwari), an outsider who has been holidaying with the family since he was eight. The romance between them is sweet and intense, and you can see why a young audience would get swept up in it. But here's how po-faced it is: Gat is short for 'Gatwick' yet there isn't a single joke about airports.