A star-studded new mystery thriller series is now available to stream at home

Stephen Porzio

The show boasts an Oscar-winner in the lead role.

The first two episodes of Lady in the Lake, a new seven-part thriller drama mystery starring Oscar-winner Natalie Portman (Black Swan), are streaming on Apple TV+ now.

Based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Laura Lippman and directed in its entirety by Alma Har’el (Honey Boy), the series explores how the disappearance of a young girl in Baltimore on Thanksgiving 1966 causes the lives of two women to converge on a “fatal collision course”.

“Maddie Schwartz (Portman) is a Jewish housewife seeking to shed a secret past and reinvent herself as an investigative journalist, and Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram, The Queen’s Gambit) is a mother navigating the political underbelly of Black Baltimore while struggling to provide for her family.

“Their disparate lives seem parallel at first, but when Maddie becomes fixated on Cleo’s mystifying death, a chasm opens that puts everyone around them in danger.”

Also featuring amongst its main and guest cast David Corenswet (the new Superman), Dylan Arnold (Oppenheimer), Mikey Madison (this year’s Cannes winner Anora), Noah Jupe (A Quiet Place) and Wood Harris (The Wire), Lady in the Lake has earned positive reviews upon release.

In particular, Portman’s performance, the show’s dense story and its stylish direction have been singled out for praise.

You can read a sample of some of the reviews for Lady in the Lake right here:

Arizona Republic: “The mystery itself isn’t what’s notable about Lady in the Lake. It’s the characters, and the communities they populate.”

Globe and Mail: “Portman’s precise and nuanced performance (in yet another predatory but more sympathetic role following her stunning work in May December) gives us everything we need to understand her character.”

The Guardian: “The whole endeavour is a dense, clever, impeccably written, acted, shot and scored offering that is designed to be consumed slowly, episode by episode, not binged.”

Times (UK): “If you like the weirdness, great, it gets a whole lot weirder. And if it sometimes feels in the early episodes as though atmosphere wins out over anything more tangible, the twists that come later are worth the wait.”

Lady in the Lake’s first two episodes are streaming on Apple TV+ right now, with the rest of the series dropping weekly on Fridays.

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