‘The Perfect Couple’ Proves We’ve Taken the Brilliant Dakota Fanning For Granted

There’s a scene in Netflix‘s The Perfect Couple, specifically in Episode 5 “Never Gonna Give You Up,” where someone walks in on Dakota Fanning‘s Abby Winbury doing something she’s not supposed to be doing. The well-heeled, vintage-dressed, pregnant blonde woman is packing up a murder victim’s clothing. It sounds like a kindness, but it’s also tampering with a crime scene.

“If they have a problem with me packing up [the victim’s] things, then they can arrest me,” Abby says. “But they won’t. Because I’m a white woman.”

“So gross,” she says in a way that lets you know she doesn’t actually think so.

Throughout the rest of the scene — and, indeed, throughout all of The Perfect Couple — Dakota Fanning manages to simultaneously be both brilliantly vapid and penetrating in her observations. Moments of clear-eyed empathy for her would-be sister-in-law Amelia (Eve Hewson) make Abby feel not just human, but likable. But then the cruel glee with which she joins asshole husband Tom (Jack Reynor) in taunting his brother, the groom-to-be, Benji (Billy Howle) reveals a base meanness that links her to her spouse.

Dakota Fanning is utterly incredible in The Perfect Couple, pirouetting between comedy and drama, fakeness and sincerity with each and every line delivery. What’s wild is how effortless the former child star makes the nuanced performance. You might not even realize how detailed, inventive, and clever her turn as Abby is until the final credits roll.

The Perfect Couple is based on Elin Hildebrand’s best-selling novel of the same name. The series opens on the idyllic rehearsal dinner for Benji Winbury and Amelia Sacks’s hastened Nantucket wedding. Since Amelia’s mother is dying of cancer, Benji’s family rearranged their Fourth of July to host a fabulous society wedding at their home, Summerland. However, the wedding doesn’t happened because a dead body is found on the Winbury property the morning of the “happy day.”

Like other glamorous, star-studded, murder mystery shows, The Perfect Couple plays with timeline and perspective to keep its audience on its toes. We flit back and forth between the present and the past, learning new details about key characters or finally seeing an exchange from a fresh perspective. In many ways, Fanning’s performance does this heavy lifting for Abby. The way she flits between kindness and cruelty, confidence and jealousy leaves you feeling like you’ve never quite figured Abby out, even if the character feels so wholly familiar.

It goes without saying that playing uppity rich bitches is nothing new to Dakota Fanning. Besides breathing fresh life into Marge Greenwood in this past spring’s Ripley, she also famously played a pint-sized Park Avenue princess in the 2003 hit Uptown Girls. Abigal Winbury feels like this template’s final form. She’s a complicated character who seems obvious at first glance. Ergo, the work of a maestro.

The Perfect Couple made me realize how much we, as a culture, take Dakota Fanning for granted. When she was a precocious child actress, she was routinely feted for her brilliant performances. Now, at the still tender age of 30, she’s matured into a performer who is still offering us new, refreshing angles of the human experience. Her craft is unmatched and it’s only getting better before our eyes. Abigail Winbury is proof of that.

With The Perfect Couple, Dakota Fanning has hit her hot rich bitch era — and it’s incredible to behold.