A still from ‘Wilderness’
Liv (Jenna Coleman) and Will (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) have everything — they are young, good looking and in love. Soon after their wedding, they move from Wales to New York for Will’s work, which seems to be something to do with events. The company puts them up in a fancy flat and they are quite living the dream.
Wilderness (Season 1)
Creator: Marnie Dickens
Cast: Jenna Coleman, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Ashley Benson, Morgana Van Peebles, Claire Rushbrook, Talia Balsam, Eric Balfour, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Jonathan Keltz
Storyline: A British couple move to New York for a cushy job and posh apartment only to have it all fall apart in a nest of deceit and lies
Episodes: 6
Run time: 42-58 minutes
For their first Christmas, Liv wants everything to be perfect as she tells her mum, Caryl (Claire Rushbrook). Liv has a difficult relationship with Caryl and has problems with trust after her father left her mum for another woman. That her mother holds her (Liv) responsible for her father’s desertion complicates matters. When Liv discovers Will having an affair with his co-worker, Cara (Ashley Benson), hell hath no fury and all that.
Will gives the usual excuses—it was a one-off, it did not mean anything and convinces Liv to go on a trip to America’s national parks to repair the marriage. The beautiful vistas contrast with Liv’s black thoughts as she plans the ultimate revenge on her low-life husband.
There are twists and turns aplenty in this adaptation of B.E. Jones’ eponymous novel. On the acting front, Coleman nails Liv’s unreliable narrator perfectly as does Jackson-Cohen with Will’s charming, but essential love-rat persona. The characters are written with broad strokes, which could be because we are seeing them from Liv’s perspective and obviously she does not consider them very important in her scheme of things.
Ash (Morgana Van Peebles) is Liv’s token gay friend, Bonnie (Talia Balsam), Will’s tough-talking boss, and Garth (Eric Balfour), Cara’s hopelessly besotted partner. The phenomenally trusting police officers, Rawlings (Marsha Stephanie Blake) and Wiseman (Jonathan Keltz) swallow all the secrets and lies like lambs.
The six episodes zip by smoothly and would just as easily slip right out of your head, though the loud pop song needle drops with the exception of Swift’s ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ in the title sequence, might come in the way of that.
Wilderness currently streams on Prime Video