Liane Moriarty’s books are ripe for adaptation.Big Little Lieswas a commercial and critical smash, and while the reaction toNine Perfect Strangerswas more middling, it was still solid enough for Hulu to greenlight a second season.Apples Never Fallhas all the ingredients to follow the success of its predecessors — a soapy mystery at the center and a talented ensemble cast — butits slow pacing and grating characters make for a sour slog of an experience.
Apples Never Fall
The Delaney family seems happy but Joy disappears, forcing her husband and four adult children to reassess their family history.
‘Apples Never Fall’ Suffers From Bland Characters
Apples Never Fallcenters around the Delaney family, which includes parents Joy (Annette Bening) and Stan (Sam Neill), as well as their very different adult children: Troy (Jake Lacy), Amy (Alison Brie), Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner), and Brooke (Essie Randles). You immediately know each character as soon as they’re introduced, though this is more becausethey all play into obvious stereotypes and tropesthan the sharpness of the writing. When Joy disappears, and it looks like foul play could be involved, Stan and the children must try and piece together what happened — and figure out if one of their own could have had something to do with it.
The Delaneys are a family of athletes, as Joy and Stan are former professional-tennis-players-turned coaches. Predictably, each of their kids grew up holding a racquet, which caused tensions and resentment well after they moved out. Stan is the tougher of the parents, with a deadly combination of aggressive ambition and a quick temper, putting intense pressure on his children to be the best. Joy is the softer, more nurturing of the two — she just wants her kids to be happy and often protected them from Stan’s outbursts and frequent disappearances when they were young. Bening and Neill have a nice chemistry, as you may sense both the passionate love and dangerous frustration Joy and Stan have for each other, but domineering, strong-willed husband and underappreciated, long-suffering wife isa dynamic we’ve seen a million times, andApples Never Falldoesn’t add anything new to the conversation. Joy isn’t a weak character per se — and the show clearly wants you to root for her — but she ends up coming off as obnoxious and unsympathetic when all is said and done. Despite its flashy twists, there are few real surprises in this marriage, and the ones that are pulled off don’t add up to much.
The kids are each a disaster in their own special, though not particularly interesting, way. Troy may be filthy rich, but he has a strained relationship with Stan due to his actions stalling his father’s coaching career (or so he thinks). Brooke has carved out her path as a physical therapist, but her practice isn’t doing well — and she’s not the only one with a less-than-stellar financial situation. Logan works at a marina but is still upset he couldn’t afford to purchase the tennis program from his parents, with it ultimately being acquired from someone outside the family. The most endearing hot mess is definitely Amy, the sensitive, high-strung free-spirit of the bunch who has ironically decided to try life coaching.
Alison Brie Is a Standout in ‘Apples Never Fall’
Brie is given the most to do, infusingApples Never Fallwith some much-needed comedy and levity.It’s a treat to watch her become even more frazzled and undone over time, anxiously ripping bongs and collecting each of her roommates’ phones to call multiple hospitals simultaneously when Joy vanishes. It’s a role we’ve seen Brie embody before, but hey, why fix what ain’t broken? Lacy is also playing in familiar territory, as Troy is a slightly different, more clichéd version of hisWhite Lotuscharacter. Randles gets to show a little range through Brooke, with flickers of something juicier lurking under the surface, though the show never fully commits to letting her delve into a darker, more self-destructive side. Logan ends up completely irrelevant, and I’m not convinced the show would be all that different if he were taken out of the equation entirely.
The main issues have to do with what the show chooses to focus on and how.Each member of the family gets their own episode, making it glaringly apparent who the weaker characters are — and wasting precious time making us suffer through their chapters. The sibling relationships are thinly drawn and inauthentic, with very little chemistry between the four of them. I had trouble buying that they loved each other, hated each other, or even grew up together. Instead, we spend eons fleshing out all of their romantic relationships that do very little to dig into their characters and even less to develop the overarching plot. It’s hard to care that Troy is cheating with his boss’s wife, that Logan’s girlfriend is moving to Seattle, or that Amy is sleeping with her landlord. Brooke’s relationship is occasionally relevant, considering it directly ties in with the mystery at one point, but even then, the amount of time we spend on these characters' affairs is puzzling and tedious.
There’s an interesting world in the background ofApples Never Fallwith the professional tennis aspect, but it frustratingly stays there — in the background. Instead of being integral to this family’s story, it’s almost an afterthought — something surface-level to make the series seem more specific and unique than it actually is. The show gives us glimpses into the siblings’ childhood, but it mostly grounds us in two roughly present-day timelines, one taking place just months before the other.The flashback strategy is both confusing and ineffective. One can’t help but think it would have been better utilized by showing us the present and decades past, digging into the family’s history — the root of their issues and traumas — instead of endlessly telling us about it.
‘Apples Never Fall’s Mystery Is Unsatisfying
The underdeveloped family drama could be forgiven if it was sacrificed for the sake of a compelling mystery, though that, too, ends up being lackluster. The catalyst for everything occurs when Joy goes missing. Everyone is a suspect, including Savannah (Georgia Flood), a woman who mysteriously inserted herself into Joy and Stan’s lives months ago, claiming to be on the run from an abusive partner. Though their children are skeptical, Joy quickly forms a bond with her, as she’s allowed to feel needed and maternal again. However, it becomes apparent that Savannah may not be who she says she is, and that her past may be darker and hit closer to home than Joy could have ever imagined.
There are secrets and backstabbing galore, with red herrings and shocks at every turn. But these twists often happen in the last 30 seconds of the episodes, with everything leading up to it and coming after it sluggish. This is also true of the series as a whole, asthe last few minutes of the finale rush to explain and wrap everything up with contrived, heavy-handed exposition. One can’t help but think it would have been much more successful condensed into a two-hour movie instead.
Not to spoil anything, but the show doesn’t live up to the promise of its premise. You get answers, but they’re underwhelming —Gone Girl-lite. Motivations are muddled, and it seems like every character is bumbling into things by coincidence instead of being actively engaged in what’s unfolding. (The heavily featured detectives are more than useless and eat up screen time as well.) Things technically pay off, and the way certain storylines are woven together occasionally borders on clever, but it’s still a cheat at the end of the day —a cheesy Mother’s Day card disguised as a thriller, and not even an especially sleek one.
Apples Never Fallmanages to make Annette Bening’s disappearance a snoozefest with an unnecessarily large ensemble, a lack of focus, and no distinct vision.The series tries to be both a family drama and a chilling mystery, only to fail at both. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, and frankly, everyone else would be better off keeping their distance from this one, too.
Apples Never Fall is rotten due to uninspired characters and a disappointing mystery.
Apples Never Fallis available to stream on Peacock in the U.S. starting March 14.
