Natalie Portman is on the verge of the nervous breakdown in Apple TV+’s latest prestige literary adaptation.
“They say until the lion tells its story, the hunter will always be its hero.” Those are the very words that Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram) utters in voice-over at the start of the very first episode of Lady in the Lake: “Alive I was Cleo Johnson,” she adds. “But in death, I became the lady in the lake.” The images that lead into and accompany that introduction (of a man carrying a lifeless body across a lake and a wearied woman looking over newspaper clippings about said “woman in the lake”) are a dizzying introduction to Alma Har’el’s small-screen adaptation of Laura Lippman’s novel by the same name.
The voice-over suggests we’re to get the lion telling her own story, perhaps a chance to redress the notion that the hunter was ever its hero. But who is being preyed upon and why, we soon learn, are endlessly more fascinating questions at the heart of Apple TV+’s latest prestige literary adaptation set in late 1960s Baltimore. After all, as Ingram’s voice over strings us through what made Cleo the titular lady in the lake, there’s a thrilling sense that only in death can she tell her story. We may begin with a well-worn television trope (the body of a dead young woman), but here she is wresting control of her own story lest it become fodder for someone else’s. Though by the end of the episode, we know this is exactly what will happen, at the moment when we learn this is a story not just about a dead Black woman but also about a dead Jewish girl — and that of the Jewish woman who finds herself embroiled in both.
The year is 1966. And a month before a man dumps a body into a lake, we are transported to a Thanksgiving parade down in Baltimore. Local anchor Wallace White (Charlie Hofheimer) is lording over the proceedings, giving us a play by play of what happy bystanders are watching: the playful dancing mailboxes (one of whom we first saw pissing in an alley), the Orioles team beaming from their float, even Santa himself. But one family is not wholly enamored with this holiday parade. Young Tessie Durst (Bianca Belle) may be looking wide-eyed at the many floats, a sea horse book on hand, but her mother and father have no time for this nonsense. She’s a Jewish girl, after all. She need not be indulged into thinking Santa is anything but a known acquaintance playing dress-up. But before the two harried parents can continue their lecture as they make their way through the crowd, Tessie sneaks into a nearby pet store where a Black man with a black eye (interested in a rare fish) and a jumpy pet store employee (eager to engage Tessie on factoids about seahorses) strike up not entirely comfortable conversations with her.
It’s Tessie’s disappearance that will upend the life of Maddie Schwartz (Natalie Portman). As Maddie, dressed in a pillbox hat and an equally Jackie O-stylish ’60s yellow dress runs errands before arriving to give a speech at a gathering celebrating fundraising efforts by the Jewish Welfare Fund (JWF) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC), she finds herself constantly thinking about Tessie. As she bloodies her dress while picking up kosher meat and then runs into a department store to buy herself a quick outfit that will still match her hat and shoes, Maddie’s eyes alight on Cleo. The young Black woman is modeling a yellow number on the store’s display window and the two share an instant: “I saw you seeing me seeing you,” Cleo recalls. The moment of recognition is fleeting but will soon enough be pivotal to the show — especially as it is cushioned by many a microaggression on both women (one Black, one Jewish) at the hands of the busybody store employees.
But it’s not Cleo who occupies Maddie’s mind. By the time the JWF/AJC meeting is called short while the city sends out search parties looking for Tessie, Maddie cannot get the little girl out of her mind. All this obsessing is starting to get to her husband, Milton (Brett Gelman), and her son, Seth (Noah Jupe), who have to witness Maddie’s spectacularly break down during their dinner event, which ends in a screaming match and broken plates. Maddie’s nerves are frayed from explaining how Wallace had taken her to prom after Tessie’s now father Allan (David Corenswet) had stood her up. It’s all too much for Maddie, a desperate housewife on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She finally snaps and decides, on the spot, to leave Milton and Seth behind.
She cares about the little girl. She clearly wants more out of life. But there’s clearly more going through her mind. Likewise, Cleo is not content with where she’s at. You can hear it in every honeyed, world-weary line delivery. She’s working days at the store and nights at a nightclub run by Shell Gordon (Wood Harris), a shady Baltimore fixture who’s intent on ruining a state senator’s political career after she pushed for school integration, yet whose motives seem to be more craven. Gordon is used to running a few illegal operations from his club (Cleo has helped him with the books), and he’s clearly not eager to let those be meddled with. And so, while a cop like Freddie Platt (Y’lan Noel) can frequent his joint and flirt with Cleo, Gordon is intent on lording over his space like he’s the only law. It’s why he cautions Cleo to stop volunteering for that senator (like she had earlier at a lunch she’d attended with her friend and the nightclub singer, Dora) and instead keep her focus on her employer and his wishes. She can start by introducing Dora (Jennifer Mogbock), who slurs her words through a number after clearly taking too many drugs upstairs.
Life at home is no better for Cleo. She has no help from her man Slappy (Byron Bowers), who’s not too keen on keeping a job or lending a hand with raising Cleo’s young boys. It’s why she, like Maddie, up and leaves her apartment and moves in with her mother.
Maddie, though, wouldn’t dare dream of crashing at her mother’s. She goes instead to Sid Weinstein, the neighborhood jeweler, who’d let it slip earlier that he had a first-floor apartment for rent. And so, hoping to pawn off her ring, she leaves instead with keys in hand to a place in a part of town that she’d never otherwise frequent. Thankfully, she has Judith Weinstein (Mikey Madison) to show her the apartment, as keen as the young girl is to use Maddie as her ticket out of her own house. But Maddie has no time for friends, though she does recruit the eager young woman for a search party of two: Maddie is intent on finding Tessie, which she does. Or, her frozen body, at least. This sends her into a near catatonic state, and she is soothed by Judith, who calms her down. It’s the moment that will change her life forever.
“No one can tell you how to live your life,” Cleo tells Maddie in the closing voice-over of the episode. “You wanted Tessie’s death to bring you that freedom, didn’t you? But it only showed you the door. It took mine to open it.” That freedom, it seems, will come at a cost. Paid by for whom, though? To what end?
Clues & Things
• I know we may have hit our quota of slowed-down, well-known songs used to score pivotal dramatic moments, but how gorgeous was that mellowed rendition of “Where’d Our Love Go?” by Dora (Jennifer Mogbock) that helped set up the reveal of Tessie’s body at the end of this episode?
• The episode was buttoned by a title card that read, “In loving memory of Jean-Marc Vallée,” who served as an executive producer on the show. A loving tribute, especially since his sensory/memory-driven editing prowess feels like a template for how Har’el and co-editor Yael Hersonski have approached the rhythms of Lady in the Lake.
• Anyone else get Black Swan vibes from that moment when Milton trashes a perfectly good brisket down the trash?
• How much of a red herring do we think are the scenes at the club involving Reggie (Josiah Cross), who clearly is getting rid of the very fish he was eyeing at the pet store earlier in the day?
• This is a beautifully shot show. The final twisting aerial shot, starting from Tessie’s body to reveal the Baltimore skyline, is gorgeous. Still, my absolute favorite shot was that of two Maddies, one young and teary-eyed, one older and clearly frayed, in a moving car, past and present, living in tandem as Maddie tries to break with the life she once had.
• As someone who’s read Laura Lippman’s novel, I was fascinated by watching Har’el twist and turn the book’s characters in this first episode. We’re staying quite close to the novel but certain details (like the dress swap as being the moment when Maddie and Cleo first cross paths) have been clearly designed specifically for the small screen, fleshing out what was, on the page, a mere passing glance. A graceful adaptation, one which avoids keeping Maddie at the center and Cleo as a mere narrative device: The show clearly wants to follow their twinned stories concurrently with equal zeal.
• Is it me or is incoming Superman himself, David Corenswet, everywhere this year? Not only did we get to see him as the central beating heart of Ned Benson’s twisty time travel romcom The Greatest Hits and as an uptight storm chaser in the ’90s throwback blockbuster pseudo-sequel, Twisters, but here he is playing Maddie’s former high-school sweetheart and Tessie’s father!
• Speaking of folks having a great year: Anora star Mikey Madison and her Baltimore accent (“a pillaw”) is everything.
