By George & Josh Bate
The following is a non-spoiler review of all six episodes of Malice
Television legend David Duchovny returns to the medium that kicked off his career in Malice, a routine piece of escapist psychological thriller entertainment streaming now on Prime Video.
Malice stars Jack Whitehall as Adam, a handsome and (not-so-secretly) ill-intentioned tutor who joins the mega-wealthy Tanner family at their Greek vacation home. Led by patriarch Jamie Tanner (David Duchovny) and his wife Nat (Carice van Houten), the Tanner family is far from perfect, from Jamie’s cutthroat parenting to troubles with their three children. Unbeknownst to the family, Adam exploits these troubles and causes all sorts of mayhem behind the scenes to execute a devious revenge plot.
From its very first scene, which flashes forward to unspecified time in the future, it is clear that Malice leaves very little up for interpretation, at least initially. The scene in question finds Whitehall’s Adam detained by customs at an American airport where he is told by an official that something terrible has happened to Duchovny’s Jamie Tanner. Adam barely bats an eyelid, stating that Jamie was not a good person and proverbially winking to the audience that he had something to do with Jamie’s fate. This sets the pattern for much of Malice, a show that is almost entirely devoid of intrigue due to how blatantly evil and sociopathic our ‘protagonist’ Adam is. Much of the six episodes follow a predictable pattern in highlighting Adam’s various subtle (and really not so subtle) manipulations of the Tanner family as a means to enact some grand plot for revenge. His motivation for revenge remains elusive, at least on paper, although it doesn’t take much thought to deduce its barebones, rendering Malice disappointingly absent of mystery.
If it’s not clear already, the series borrows extensively from the likes of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Saltburn in portraying a scorned and impoverished individual’s insidious attempts to derail the life and family of someone who wronged them. Given that we’ve seen this story countless times, one can’t help but wait for some great twist or subversion that makes Malice a tale worth telling. Unfortunately, that twist never really arrives. The episodes make an unexpected relocate from Greece to England, before relocating back to Greece, and there’s certainly a tension fostered in having a front row seat to Adam slowly sow destruction for the ignorant Tanner family, but there is never anything novel or noteworthy enough to set them apart from similarly plotted (and far better told) movies, shows, and books.
In addition to the barely hidden parallels to the aforementioned movies, Malice also seems interested in tapping into the appeal of HBO’s The White Lotus, albeit with similarly botched execution. Like Mike White’s hit series, Malice features lots of ultra-wealthy people acting like assholes. The most blatant of these assholes is Jamie Tanner, the father figure unafraid to berate his children and patronize his wife, played with much-needed subtlety and groundedness by David Duchovny. But there’s also the other members of the Tanner family and even their wealthy friends, all of whom do little to evoke empathy or even sympathy from the viewer given their callousness and ungratefulness. Unlike The White Lotus, in which there is typically one or two characters with a semblance of a moral compass to latch onto, Malice doesn’t have someone to root for. In a strange move, the writers decide against asking moral questions of its audience in affirming almost immediately that, out of a bad bunch, Whitehall’s Adam is certainly the bad guy. In turn, the series has an issue with perspective as the inner-workings of everyone, including our lead Adam, are kept at a relative distance from the audience.
Despite its half-hearted attempts to replicate better stories, Malice retains enough tension and bolsters two compelling lead performances from Whitehall and Duchovny to make the series engaging. However, the good-will earned by sticking with the show, in hopes of a stark improvement or desperately needed twist, is destroyed come the end as it perplexingly never circles back to tons of elements introduced earlier on and lands on a conclusion that doesn’t hold up if exposed to the most minute of scrutiny. Maybe if it was stripped down to the length of a feature film, these issues could be more easily forgiven, but, with six 40+ minute episodes, one can’t help but feel cheated when the narrative we’ve invested hours in wraps up so carelessly.
VERDICT: 4.5/10
Television David Duchovny returns to the medium that kicked off his career with a show that falls spectacularly short of the beloved series in his filmography. Malice borrows heavily from The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and The Talented Mr. Ripley to tell, yet again, another story about a scorned and impoverished person embedding themselves into the life of someone who wronged them to enact a grand plot for revenge. Unfortunately, the series from creator James Wood lacks any of the intrigue the aforementioned films possessed in being far too overt with its sociopathic characterization of Jack Whitehall’s lead character Adam. Although there’s certainly some tension that comes from watching Adam subtly (and not so subtly) sow destruction in the lives of the wealthy Tanner family, one can’t help but feel cheated when such a routine narrative eventually wraps up so carelessly and devoid of a much-needed twist or subversion. David Duchovny may bring much-needed subtlety and groundedness to the story, but it’s not enough to elevate Malice above and beyond the various films and televisions it poorly draws inspiration from.