“Explosive weekend”, “unexpected twists”, “breathless investigation into a gruesome murder”… that’s what we’ve read about the new Netflix series, Sirens. Enough to make us want to watch it, especially since with a cast including Julianne Moore, Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus), Milly Alcock (House of the Dragon) and Kevin Bacon, we think that, on paper, the series could tease its sister series from Max. And its presence in the streaming platform's Top 10 wouldn't make us think otherwise.
Especially since the series is written by Molly Smith Metzler, to whom we owe the play Elemeno Pea, from which the show is an adaptation. When the author herself takes care of a new iteration of her baby, it gives a little extra confidence. We'd also say that Sirens was recommended to us by a colleague, but we don't trust her tastes very much, so it doesn't count.
What is Sirens about?
Finding it increasingly difficult to manage her father's degenerative illness on her own, Devon (Meghann Fahy), a lost young woman Struggling with his addictions, he sets out to find his little sister, Simone (Milly Alcock). She now works on an island, in a luxurious villa as a personal assistant to Michaela (Julianne Moore), the owner of the house. Devon quickly suspects that Simone is under the influence of her boss and tries to leave with her. But Michaela seems to exert a mysterious power of attraction.
Should you watch the Netflix series?
When you look at the reviews for Sirens, you can see that the series is divisive. And both sides can agree. It's true that the cast is particularly invested and that the amount of talent brought together is substantial, including among the supporting roles. Likewise, the idea of playing with the myth of sirens, in the ancient monstrous sense of the term, to ultimately seek to give birth to a feminist morality is interesting. As for the satire on social class difference, it's nothing new, however, it has the merit of being amusing at times. Well, for our part, we'll stop there with the compliments, time for the salt.
Why Sirens will never be The White Lotus? Because, even if the ingredients are good taken separately, the chef has no idea what dish she's preparing. It's not easy to go from a play to a series of five one-hour episodes, especially when the heart of the subject is hidden only in the last episode. Halfway through the series, we still didn't know where the story was going, and the overwhelming feeling was that neither was the story. Was it a fantasy tale? We quickly understand that it wasn't. A thriller? Neither. A comedy? Still not. The story tries every approach and then switches to another like a hair in the soup. It's very long, very slow, and we struggle to continue watching. Apart from a few bursts of enthusiasm, we're bored stiff.
And not only do the genres not mix well, or poorly, but each one is handled without any subtlety. When the comedic sequences arrive, they play the parody card so much that we feel like we're in another show, then, without warning, we switch to a much more dramatic scene. The mythological aspect? While the events are open to interpretation, the background singing every five minutes and the overly emphatic dream imagery needlessly weigh down the whole thing. In fact, we're faced with a production that wants to do everything, do too much, while never having the talent to match its ambitions.
That's what we remember about Sirens. Layers upon layers upon layers. A series that wants to approach all its ideas on an equal footing without any perspective or sorting, and mixes everything together with crass flatness. The dialogues are bland, the twists are so conventional that we don't know if we're in a Christmas TV movie or The Young and the Restless, and the writing of the characters completely undermines the point.
Because yes, it's worth addressing this last point. Sirens is as feminist as Rambo 2. Our three protagonists are each unbearable in their own way, presented most of the time as castrating manipulators, excused only by a difficult past. The men? Simple victims of clichés. The final moral could have changed this state of affairs if the series hadn't spent its time putting our "heroines" in opposition, even in competition. Should we see women abused by patriarchy and the dictates of beauty, or adversaries in search of power? By delaying taking a position, the series ultimately gives up on choosing. And that's already making a choice.
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