All Her Fault: Guilt and Culprits in an Exaggerated Series

In the first few seconds of the series, we see Marissa Irvine ringing an unknown address to pick up her five-year-old son Milo, but the woman who opens the door is not Jenny, the mother who had contacted her by phone, but an elderly lady who knows nothing about it. To her horror, Marissa discovers that the little boy has disappeared, possibly kidnapped, with the GPS tracker in his backpack disabled. All Her Fault, a new eight-episode series available on Sky and NOW, immediately plunges us into the heart of the drama.

Marissa and her husband Peter finally manage to contact Jenny, who, however, is unaware of everything, and it soon emerges that it was actually her nanny Carrie Finch who orchestrated the kidnapping. But for what reason? While the police investigation, entrusted to the experienced detective Alcaras, flounders, the two women will end up strengthening their bond, with the world around them crumbling day by day.

All Her Fault: Past and Present

We find ourselves facing yet another thriller centered on wealthy or very wealthy characters grappling with an unfolding drama, during which various skeletons in the closet will come to light, thus attempting to justify an otherwise inexplicable overall duration for the mere investigative aspect. Dream homes thus become gilded cages, and the case fed to public opinion progressively erodes that aura of respectability so painstakingly built.

Here we are once again faced with a long series of multiple flashbacks, surprise revelations, suspicions shifting from one character to another, in a typical interlocking structure where each episode lifts a veil to reveal a new hidden secret, often forcing the hand to seek a shock effect at all costs. Some work, some less so, but that ending where all the loose ends are tied up seems far too implausible to be taken seriously, stripping pathos and suspense from a story that relied entirely on its psychologically tense core. 

Characters in Search of an Author

After the triumph of Succession, for which she won an Emmy, and the double theatrical success with The Picture of Dorian Gray (Olivier Award and Tony Award for her one-woman-show performance in which she plays 26 different characters alone), Sarah Snook arrives at what is her first series as a protagonist and executive producer post-HBO. Expectations were understandably high, to see a series where all the dramatic weight rested on her shoulders. It must be said she does not disappoint, like most of the cast which in other key roles features talented performers such as Michael Peña, Sophia Lillis, and Dakota Fanning, the latter in the role of the protagonist's neurotic counterpart.

The problem, however, lies in their characterization, with an unbalanced script that explores many backgrounds but paradoxically neglects Marissa's own, making her a kind of witness, albeit understandably active, to those increasingly absurd situations involving those closest to her, with trust crumbling little by little as new, horrible truths come to light to destroy her world.

There is a drastic drop in narrative quality after the first two episodes, in which the sense of urgency and apprehension for the kidnapped child becomes palpable and oppressive, putting us in the uncomfortable shoes of these afflicted parents. From then on, the whole seems to dilute and begins to lose momentum, having to resort to the aforementioned shock solutions to rekindle the viewer's curiosity.

And this is precisely the problem, in the lack of sensitivity in dealing with a series of uncomfortable topics, concerning marital relationships and the blame too often placed on mothers, almost demanding greater commitment from them than from fathers. But instead of letting the dynamics emerge naturally from the various twists, All Her Fault - a title that, all things considered, already said a lot - feels the need to articulate them explicitly, through dialogue and sensational actions. A writing that preaches instead of delving deeper, that fears the audience will not understand the message if it is not explained with clear and at times shouted words, with all the consequences that entails.