Secrets and Lies: A Surprisingly Measured Network Murder Mystery Drama
Secrets and Lies, a network murder mystery drama, is adapted from the Australian mini-series of the same name. The first two episodes present a surprisingly measured show that revolves around familiar themes such as affairs, child murder, and white male angst. Although it isn’t as overtly melodramatic as one might expect, it lacks a certain sense of creativity and ingenuity in its cinematic direction and character beats.
The central mystery of Secrets and Lies is a bunch of well-disguised, predictable story threads wrapped in the familiar, trope-heavy cloak of “murder uprooting the calm suburbia.” The show’s saving grace is the strong pair of lead performances by Ryan Phillippe and Juliette Lewis.
Ryan Phillippe and Juliette Lewis Elevate the Show
Phillippe and Lewis are two underutilized actors who manage to elevate the otherwise typical premises set for their characters. Phillippe is impressive as the accused father Ben Crawford, whose professional and personal lives crumble when he finds the neighbor’s child dead in the woods from a head injury. He then becomes Andrea Cornell’s (Lewis) leading suspect in the case.
Lewis is much less defined outside her character’s job in the first two episodes, but she conveys Cornell’s steamrolling attitude carefully, without falling into the melodramatic traps that many other shows embrace. Cornell is more of a device to poke holes into Crawford’s life than an actual entity at this point.
Extreme Focus on Ben Crawford: A Double-Edged Sword
The extreme focus on Ben Crawford is both a strength and a weakness for Secrets and Lies. It does a great job early on pushing Ben out of his comfort zone into a place where he has to defend a number of seemingly innocent, increasingly suspicious decisions he’s made in the past. However, all that focus on his past behavior robs the show of the chance to inform him (or anyone else) in the present.
All we do is watch Ben in reactionary mode, and it makes the other, deeper conflicts of the show, the ones designed to bring the central murder mystery to light over time, not as developed or interesting. There’s potential, particularly with the youngest daughter Abby, who doesn’t have to fill the annoying “angsty teenager” role older daughter Natalie does, but this is only developed in a few scenes in the second episode.
Secrets and Lies: A Well-Produced but Hollow Show
As sanitized and flat as Secrets and Lies can feel, there is promise in the show’s delivery of its story. It doesn’t go out of its way to emphasize unnecessary details and doesn’t layer on twists and red herrings in an attempt to confuse or distract the audience from obvious truths.
Once Secrets and Lies moves beyond painting Ben Crawford as a possible murderer and widens its lens, it shows moments where it can be an interesting examination of the thin social construct of a suburban neighborhood, and what happens when it reflects the darkest, coldest tendencies of human nature.
Unfortunately, its measured approach is a little too undramatic and unrefined, which leaves much of Secrets and Lies feeling well-produced, but hollow and whitewashed to the point it has no personality of its own. It’s like the cinematic equivalent of a brown cardboard box: well-constructed and sturdy to the eye, but thoroughly boring and surprisingly malleable under pressure, an abundantly common item that can be found in a million different shapes, sizes, and colors more interesting (and deep) than this one.
[Photo via ABC]
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