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There are personal assistants and there are personal assistants. In Sirens, Netflix’s new high-society comedy-drama, twenty-something Simone (Milly Alcock) doesn’t just run errands and schedule meetings for philanthropist Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore); she also soothes her to sleep, spritzes her underwear with “lavender mist” and helps her sext her hedge-funder husband (Kevin Bacon). While even Jeeves, you suspect, would have drawn the line at taking steamy snaps of Bertie Wooster, Simone is all too eager to go the extra mile.
Her reward is the “special honour” of being able to call Michaela “Kiki”, and spend summers at her boss’s New England island estate. It’s here, days before the Kells’ famous Labor Day fundraising gala, that Simone’s chaotic sister Devon (Meghann Fahy) suddenly arrives, threatening to cause a scene unless she agrees to visit their ailing father (Bill Camp) back in Buffalo. News of his worsening dementia upsets Simone far less than the prospect of Devon embarrassing her in front of the elegant, exacting Michaela and her boyfriend — three-time winner of “New England’s most eligible bachelor”, Ethan Corbin III (Glenn Howerton).
Devon has little patience for appearances or time for the fastidious dress code and fussy house rules — no smoking, no carbs. Yet the more Simone pleads with her to leave, the more her sister becomes convinced that Michaela is not just the head of a falcon rescue charity, but the leader of a cult, from whose manicured clutches the seemingly brainwashed Simone needs saving.
Moore has no trouble playing a beguiling woman with an unnerving ability to enchant and intimidate almost anyone. Fahy — who improbably stars as an unwanted guest among New England elites in a glossy Netflix series for the second time in a year (after The Perfect Couple) — also does well to capture the conflict between Devon’s protective instincts and her self-destructive streak.
The show too gets caught between disparate moods. Running alongside a lightly cynical class satire is a much heavier narrative about how childhood trauma tears families apart and leads siblings down irreconcilable paths. But the two narratives never quite cohere — the playful send-up of self-important socialites undermines the drama; the slightly overwrought family conflict dampens the comedy.
Despite an inconsistent tone and uneven pacing, the starry ensemble and scenic locations keep things the right side of watchable. But if it’s not one to actively avoid, Sirens isn’t quite as alluring as the name suggests.
★★★☆☆
On Netflix from May 22
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