In Apples Never Fall, which SkyShowtime premieres on Tuesday, the Delaneys are an untouchable family. Stan (Sam Neill) and Joy (Annette Bening), now retired, ran the tennis club that set the agenda for West Palm Beach high society. He is a local celebrity as the former coach of an elite tennis player and she, a professional player when she was young, had been the friendly face of the marriage, in addition to being the one who raised their four children: Troy (Jake Lacy), Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner ), Brooke (Essie Randles) and Amy (Alison Brie).
But when Joy disappears and the children discover that their father is lying to them about his whereabouts, the image of a perfect family collapses. The police suspect the husband, who sports a wound on his face, but the children, who begin to distrust even their father, point to a vulnerable young woman named Savannah (Georgia Flood) who months before knocked on the Delaneys’ door in the middle of the night.
With Apples Never Fall, screenwriter Melanie Marnich, who has worked on series such as The OA or Murder at the End of the World, adapts a novel by Liane Moriarty, the author of the texts that served as the basis for the perfect Big Little Lies and the irregular Nine perfect strangers.
It is a mystery drama showcased by Annette Bening, also an executive producer, superficial but well structured. It connects with this new trend of converting plots that previously would have served for a simple Saturday afternoon TV movie into a miniseries of a few chapters.
The events prior to the disappearance are presented with ease, curiosity is aroused and the pieces fit together, but the treatment of characters does not go beyond the functional and Marnich does not offer a reading that allows us to go beyond the strict resolution of the case.
