REVIEW: 'The Girlfriend' Drowns In Love, Lies, And Melodrama
- Emma Fisher
- 15 hours ago
- 5 min read
This article contains spoilers for The Girlfriend.
Prime Video's The Girlfriend is proof that a glossy thriller can look expensive, boast a strong cast, and still fall flat. Across six overwrought episodes, the series promises intrigue, danger, and psychological warfare, but mostly delivers shrill melodrama and nonsensical twists. If you're after depth or a decent adaptation of your favourite book, this isn't it.
The series throws you into the deep end from the outset, opening with two women locked in a vicious struggle underwater, as it teases a dangerous rivalry that will escalate throughout its duration. But almost immediately, it backpedals into soap opera territory. We jump back five months to meet Laura (Robin Wright), an art gallery owner whose life revolves around her adult son Daniel (Laurie Davidson). She's elegant, accomplished, and increasingly unsettling in her attachment to him. When Daniel introduces his new girlfriend, Cherry (Olivia Cooke), Laura's world tilts off its axis.
Cherry is a chameleon. In one breath, she's ambitious and professional, talking up dreams of tackling the housing crisis, and in the next, she's lying about her education, finances, and childhood. She's introduced as a glamorous interloper and is revealed, layer by layer, to have fabricated much of her past. The Girlfriend wants us to ask: Who is the real Cherry? However, the execution is clumsy, thanks to on-the-nose dialogue and performances that are forced to sell increasingly implausible lies.
The tension between Laura and Cherry is meant to be the foundation of the show. At first, it's gripping to watch a typical boy mum awkwardly go head-to-head with her son's girlfriend, and their scenes together bristle with a mix of mutual fascination and loathing. But by the time we get to Spain in the second episode, where the whole family and their friends head for a holiday, the intrigue has already started to weaken.
Instead of tightening the tension, the series piles on contrivances through a tennis match that descends into hostility, a missed dinner, and endless conversations about whether Daniel is too close to his mother. What should feel like a web of deceit comes off as repetitive. Laura snoops, Cherry lies, and Daniel looks confused. There's an attempt to humanise both women as Cherry confides about her working-class roots and Laura admits to a past relationship with a woman (Anna Chancellor). Unfortunately for the series, the writing doesn't trust these developments in earnest, preferring to lurch back into melodrama.
By the third episode, things start to unravel. Here, the series leans on clichés, including a restraining order, an ominous ex-boyfriend, and money troubles to heighten the stakes, but without depth to its characters, it just feels hollow. When an accident occurs, it's hard to care because the characters involved are written as chess pieces, moved into whatever position will lead to the next dramatic set piece.
The later episodes push fully into camp thriller territory. A social media account is hacked, a gallery is vandalised, and public humiliations occur. Any nuance about grief, class, or identity, which the story gestures toward, is drowned out in favour of further outlandish twists. A pivotal confrontation between Laura and Cherry at an exhibition, for instance, is so heightened it borders on parody. What should feel like a devastating social takedown instead plays like a soap opera drink-throwing scene.
Robin Wright does her best to lend Laura dignity, but even she can't salvage the ludicrousness of some scenes. Her performance is controlled, but the material often gives her nowhere to go that feels plausible. Laura is written as a woman who spirals, yet the beats of her obsession are exaggerated, even if she is correct in her suspicion. Olivia Cooke fares better, reveling in her character's slipperiness. She is equal parts seductive, cunning, and vulnerable, bringing energy to even the most ridiculous exchanges. Watching the two go head-to-head is entertaining, even if the series struggles to decide on its tone.
The Girlfriend doesn't know if it's a domestic thriller, a social satire about class and motherhood, or a campy melodrama. At times, it seems to want to be all three, alternating between pop soundtracks, tense confessions, and moments of psychological terror. The result is muddled and exhausting. Instead of sharp suspense, we get needle drops that either hammer home every emotion or feel like they have been taken from a trending social media post, perspective switches, and dialogue that explains instead of reveals.
There are flashes of what could have been a much better series. The themes are rich: the possessive mother who cannot let go of her son, the working-class woman determined to infiltrate elite spaces, and the way grief warps family dynamics. However, the writing refuses to trust those ideas. By the finale, the series delivers what it promised at the beginning with the fight between Laura and Cherry in the water. But by then, the effect wanes. You won't gasp; you'll just sigh that it took six episodes to return to where we started.
Ultimately, The Girlfriend sits closer to a guilty-pleasure watch over a prestige drama. The performances are committed, the production values are glossy, but the storytelling is scattered. It's not a complete disaster – there are scenes of genuine tension, and watching Wright square off against Cooke is occasionally electrifying – but it's a missed opportunity that is exhausted by its own excess.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
About The Girlfriend
Premiere Date:Â September 10, 2025
Episode Count:Â 6
Executive Producers: Robin Wright, Will Tennant, Phil Robertson, John Zois, Dave Clarke, Gabbie Asher, Michelle Frances
Writers: Sheldon, Asher, Polly Cavendish, Helen Kingston, Marek Horn, Ava Wong Davies, Isis Davis, Smita Bhide, Matt Evans
Directors: Robin Wright and Andrea Harkin
Production:Â Imaginarium Productions and Amazon MGM Studios
Distribution:Â Amazon MGM Studios
Cast:Â Robin Wright, Olivia Cooke, Laurie Davidson, Waleed Zuaiter, Tanya Moodie, Shalom Brune-Franklin, Karen Henthorn, Anna Chancellor, Leo Suter, Francesca Corney
Synopsis: Based on Michelle Frances' novel of the same name, The Girlfriend follows Laura (Wright), a woman who seemingly has it all: a glittering career, a loving husband, and her precious son, Daniel. Her perfect life begins to unravel when Daniel brings home Cherry (Cooke), a girlfriend who changes everything. After a tense introduction, Laura becomes convinced Cherry is hiding something. Is she a manipulative social climber, or is Laura just paranoid? The truth is a matter of perspective.