‘Imperfect Women’ Review: Elisabeth Moss Leads a Glossy but Familiar Murder Mystery (Apple TV)

Famous actresses. Long friendships. Complicated marriages. Luxury and money. Romantic affairs. A murder. Those elements could describe a dozen different TV series, from Big Little Lies to the recent All Her Fault, that with a few cosmetic tweaks end up looking an awful lot alike. What they have going for them is the familiarity of the cast, the charisma of their leads, and a format that more or less runs on autopilot. Clues appear, clues disappear, nothing is what it seems, but the real story is always somewhere else entirely. What works against them is exactly the same thing: a familiarity with the mechanics that makes everything feel like a variation on something you have already seen.

These days the prestige crime show for the true-crime crowd, whose audience statistics say skews more female than male, is basically the elegant cousin of the old afternoon soap. A respectable relative of a storytelling formula that, honestly, a well-trained AI could probably crank out on demand. Imperfect Women, based on the novel by Araminta Hall, arrives as Apple TV+’s entry into this very successful genre. Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington and Kate Mara play the trio of friends at the center of the story. And, as usual, it is a murder that reveals their relationship to be considerably more tangled than it first appears.

The setup comes right away. After a night out together, Nancy (Mara), the wife of a wealthy businessman, is found murdered, apparently the victim of a robbery gone wrong. Shocked, Eleanor (Washington), who runs a well-known charitable foundation, and Mary (Moss), a housewife, find themselves questioned by the authorities. At the same time they begin conducting their own investigation, trying to figure out what really happened to Nancy. That search opens the door to all kinds of unexpected discoveries, not only about their friend’s private life but also about the complicated ties connecting the three women.

The first three episodes unfold from Eleanor’s perspective and grows increasingly absurd. Then the narrative shifts to Nancy, speaking through flashbacks, and finally to Mary, with each woman recounting events from her own point of view. Gradually it becomes clear that their seemingly impeccable friendship had its share of darker corners. Jealousy, betrayals, crossed desires and tensions had long been simmering beneath the polished smiles and public niceties. Still, for all the lies and secrets, the friendship itself was real, just not quite as simple as it looked.

Hall’s novel is set in London, while the series moves the story to Los Angeles. In its essentials, however, it stays fairly close to the source material. Created by Annie Weisman, the show spends its eight episodes weaving, or perhaps unweaving, a story that constantly shifts its center of gravity. Was it a random crime committed by a thief? Did Nancy have a lover who killed her? Did her husband do it after discovering the affair? Or is something else entirely lurking beneath the surface?

Adding their own very different energies to the central trio are Joel Kinnaman as Nancy’s overbearing husband, Corey Stoll as Mary’s spouse, and Leslie Odom Jr. as Eleanor’s brother and the most important man in her life.

Anyone who has watched three or four series like this, or read a few novels built on the same template, will probably figure out fairly quickly what might have happened. What is relatively interesting about the show is that from that point on, Imperfect Women shifts its weight elsewhere. The focus moves toward the portrait of the relationship itself and toward the ways three women with apparently satisfying lives —one financially secure, another professionally accomplished, and the third seemingly fulfilled by family life— are quietly longing for something else.

That is where having performers of Mara’s, Washington’s and especially Moss’s caliber makes a difference. The plot itself does not have much that feels new. It is the actresses who bring life, complexity and, above all, a measure of humanity to what might otherwise feel like stock characters.