We can’t resist binge-watching streaming series when an entire season is dropped onto the menu at once — but there are certain works that are probably best absorbed one or two courses at a time.
Case in point: the seven-part Apple TV+ series noir “Lady in the Lake,” with the first two chapters to be released on July 19, and subsequent episodes released weekly on Fridays. Granted, it be can frustrating in this age of Instant Gratification to wait a week for a new episode, just like they had to do in the olden days, but director Alma Har’el has delivered such a bold, outrageously creative, provocative and disturbingly intense adaptation of Laura Lippman’s acclaimed and best-selling novel that it would seem almost disrespectful to wolf it down in a day or two.
Best to let it breathe, while we catch our breath.
Filmed in Baltimore and featuring exquisitely on-point production values capturing the mid-1960s time period, “Lady in the Lake” is inspired by two unrelated, real-life tragedies: the murder of an 11-year-old Jewish girl, and the mysterious death of a 33-year-old Black woman. (Beyond that, this is pure fiction.)
Against the backdrop of a Thanksgiving Day Parade, a girl named Tessie Durst (Bianca Belle) goes missing, setting off a city-wide search and igniting intense media coverage. Natalie Portman’s Maddie Schwartz, an upper-middle-class Jewish housewife and mother, becomes obsessed with the case, much to the befuddlement of her abrasive husband Milton (Brett Gelman) and the annoyance of her sullen teenage son Seth (Noah Jupe). For reasons not revealed until deep into the story, Maddie has a hunch about where Tessie might be found — and indeed, she’s the one who discovers the body of the murdered girl.
By that time, Maddie has already made the sudden and shocking decision to leave her family, take a shabby apartment in a mostly Black neighborhood and pursue her long-dormant dream of becoming an investigative reporter. This all seems like an arbitrary and not entirely plausible development in the narrative early on, and Maddie doesn’t come across as a particularly likable character at first. But Natalie Portman is one of our finest actors and she holds our attention, and we eventually come to realize there’s a lot more to Maddie Schwartz than the easy label of “bored housewife having an early mid-life crisis.” Maddie’s quest to reinvent herself is nothing less than a full-on attempt to save herself from drowning.
The “Lady in the Lake” story expands and overlaps in sometimes complicated fashion, as Maddie pursues a second mystery: the discovery of the remains of Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram from “Obi-Wan”), who had disappeared several months earlier. Unlike the Tessie Durst story, the apparent murder of Cleo is largely ignored by the mainstream press, because who cares about the murder of another Black woman?
Maddie gets her foot in the door at the Baltimore Star newspaper after providing some valuable tips in the Tessie Durst case to star columnist Bob Bauer (Pruitt Taylor Vince), but when she tries to drum up interest in the Cleo Johnson story, Bauer growls at her that it belongs in the trash, and that’s where she’ll wind up if she doesn’t let it go. Welcome to the Baltimore, and the America, of 1967. (And on some level, 2024.)
Narrating from the grave, Cleo often calls out Maddie and questions her motives, e.g., “Your writing dreams ruined your life. Now you wanted those same dreams to rewrite it. But why did you need to drag my dead body into it? I was safe, at the bottom of that fountain.”
This is just the beginning of the creative flourishes employed by director Har’el, a distinctive talent whose previous works include the documentary “Bombay Beach” and the feature film “Honey Boy.” One late episode of the series is punctuated by some wild and stunning and bizarre surrealistic trips into fantasy and nightmares; there are times when the gonzo style overshadows the substance, but it’s gripping stuff.
Throughout, the performances of Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram carry the day, but “Lady in the Lake” also has a brilliant supporting ensemble playing fascinating and complex characters, including Y’lan Noel as a Baltimore police officer who becomes involved with Maddie; Wood Harris as Shell Gordon, a nefarious and intimidating boss who runs the numbers game in the Black community; Josiah Cross as Reggie Robinson, the conflicted right-hand man to Shell, and Byron Bowers as Cleo’s husband, Slappy Johnson, an edgy comedian in the tradition of Dick Gregory. We also get a series of great needle drops — everything from “Evil Ways” by Willie Bobo to “Nobody Knows” by Pastor T. L. Barrett and the Youth for Christ Choir to “Is That All There Is?” by Peggy Lee.
Every episode of “Lady in the Lake” is brimming with intrigue and fresh revelations and scenes of startling and sometimes violent impact. Trust me when I say you’re better off watching it one week at a time.
