His & Hers: hunting for lies in the Netflix miniseries

In the town of Dahlonega, Georgia, the brutal murder of a woman shakes a community that had never had to face a crime of such magnitude. The victim, who is revealed to be Rachel Hopkins, was killed with about forty stab wounds and left on the hood of a car in the heart of the forest, immediately becoming a national media case. The investigation into the crime is entrusted to local detective Jack Harper, a tormented figure who hides more than one secret.

In His & Hers, Anna Andrews, a television host who fell from grace after disappearing for an entire year following a personal tragedy, soon appears in town. She sees this true crime case as the perfect opportunity to relaunch her career. In her role as a field reporter, she decides to return to her hometown to follow the case, finding herself face to face with Jack, who is none other than the husband from whom she separated after the sudden death of their infant daughter. The "forced" reunion will kick off new dynamics and unexpected plot twists.

His & Hers: Who killed Rachel Hopkins?

The trope of a psychological thriller set in a seemingly quiet small community, where crimes of various magnitudes undermine the status quo and bring long-buried skeletons out of the closet, is a classic. His & Hers, an adaptation of Alice Feeney's bestselling novel of the same name, arrives on Netflix with the declared ambition of standing out from the crowd thanks to an exceptional duo of protagonists formed by Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal and the direction of William Oldroyd, a British director known for turbulent and fascinating works such as Lady Macbeth (2016) and Eileen (2023), here making his debut in the world of television series, albeit sharing duties with his colleague Anja Marquardt.

We are faced with an operation that oscillates between moments of genuine tension and slips into more derivative solutions, between the desire to be a drama about family traumas and a past that returns, and the need to satisfy the expectations of the contemporary genre, with a whirlwind of plot twists that in the second half risks derailing the entire narrative construction - although it must be said the final revelation comes relatively unexpectedly.

The original title His & Hers, in its ambiguity, aims to highlight the contrast between the two versions of events - namely Jack's and Anna's - but ultimately the ambiguities fade in a screenplay that, on the contrary, explains everything too clearly, leaving little room for doubt and instead amplifying the importance of choices, regardless of the timeline in which they occur. Indeed, it ends up playing with the viewer's intelligence on at least a couple of occasions, as they find themselves being deceived with memories that change inconsistently to suit the narrative's logic.

Like before, more than before

Six episodes, with an average duration of about forty minutes each, accompany us through this tormented love story between the protagonists, now exes but not entirely reluctant to rekindle the flame of passion, which was extinguished following an unspeakable tragedy. And they find adequate character strength in the raw performances of Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal, ready to hide the nuances and details of their characters, which are about to come to light as the increasingly frantic events unfold. Events that experience an exaggerated crescendo in the second half of the season, with a partial imbalance of rhythm that risks taking away the overall coherence of the viewing experience.

The director transforms Georgia into a humid and oppressive purgatory, where lush nature conceals moral decay rooted in forgotten adolescences. The cinematography emphasizes contrasts, with the warm tones of the daytime countryside clashing with the darkness of the night sequences, creating a modern noir atmosphere that elevates the staging to an above-average level for productions of this type. It's a shame that certain stylistic refinements don't always find adequate support from a story that undoubtedly has the means to keep the general public glued to the screen, but which, as often happens, settles for easy and not always credible solutions.