Stay Close (Netflix) (review by Letitia Fitzpatrick)
Is Stay Close your new Netflix binge-watch?
Northern Irish actor James Nesbitt is a brooding detective in this mystery drama miniseries based on the 2012 Harlan Coben novel of the same title. It’s a thrill-ride of a story about people who keep shocking secrets from their families and closest friends.
The author is a master storyteller and Coben is hot property at the moment. 14 of his 31 novels are due to be adapted for Netflix as original series or films, with him serving as executive director on all projects. His plots often involve the resurfacing of unresolved or misinterpreted events in the past, murders, or fatal accidents, and have multiple twists.
Last year we had The Stranger, an adaptation of Coben’s 2015 bestseller, which told the increasingly demented tale of a husband (Richard Armitage) who discovers from a mysterious stranger that his wife faked her pregnancy and miscarriage before she disappeared.
Stay Close promises something similar. The plot centres on Megan Pierce played by Cush Jumbo, who starred as attorney Lucca Quinn in The Good Wife and The Good Fight. Megan is a suburban mum with a picture-perfect life, and a loving husband and three children who are living the dream. But she harbours a secret past that will soon intrude into her comfortable world and everything she cherishes.
Another character with a murky past is Richard Armitage, who plays a down-at-heel paparazzo, Ray Levine. His talent as a documentary photographer is a distant memory, after he lost the woman he loves who is now missing.
James Nesbitt (star of Cold Feet, Murphy’s Law, Bloody Sunday, The Way and The Missing) plays Michael Broome, a burnt out police detective. He’s haunted by the cold case of a disappeared man, the only one he ever failed to solve. 17 years later to the day, another man goes missing, and Broome takes on that case too, stirring up the past, opening old wounds and striving to find the truth about both men.
Weaving their way through the tale of Megan, Ray and Michael are two psychopaths determined to get their own way. Comedian Eddie Izzard is also in the cast, playing Harry Sutton, a lawyer and a former associate of Megan’s. Sarah Parish is cast as Lorraine Griggs, a mysterious woman from Megan’s past.
Released on New Years Eve 2021, the series was filmed in England although the novel was set in the United States. There are a few cliches and corny lines along the way, but so far, the series is proving very popular with viewers and most reviewers.