Amazon Prime's new summer thriller is definitely worth the hype

Metro

12 hours ago

Would someone please spare a thought for the offspring of the mega wealthy? It's something TV has been asking us to do for years and it looks like the going still isn't great for the super-rich in We Were Liars.
In the latest glossy spin on the rich-people-having-a-terrible-time sub-genre of the small screen, Amazon Prime Video has turned the smash BookTok sensation from E Lockhart into a twisty, turny eight-part adaptation.
On this occasion the fabulously wealthy family in question are the Sinclairs, a Kennedy-esque oppressively blonde brood who every summer decamp to their private island Beechwood, near Martha's Vineyard.
The picture-postcard setting is their very own summer idyll, with huge houses and endless opportunities to cannonball into the aquamarine water.
Yet all is not as it seems. 'Something terrible happened last summer,' our heroine Cady Sinclair – played by Emily Alyn Lind of the doomed Gossip Girl reboot – tells us. 'I have no memory of what or who hurt me.'
We see Cady's mangled half-naked body atop a cliff at the end of summer, after a mysterious incident which the entire show wraps around. We flashback to the beginning of June to, like Cady, piece together everything she forgot and find out what happened.
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Of the Sinclair grandchildren, there are the 'littles' and the titular 'liars' (yes, it's a bit smug) – Cady and her cousins are known as such after a childhood spent being troublemakers prone to a fib. There's Johnny (Joseph Zada), Mirren (Esther McGregor) and Gat (Shubham Maheshwari), who is the outsider of the group, as not technically a Sinclair, and one of the only non-white people on Beechwood.
Before everything goes bust for Cady, a long-simmering attraction to Gat finally blossoms into full-blown summer romance. The show bottles up that giddy feeling of being a teenager with a huge crush – it's a lot of close-ups on eyes, mouths, feet and hands as they brush – even if it is on someone who's positioned as cousin-adjacent.
In between the summer loving, there's inevitable family drama. The Sinclair grandfather Harris (David Morse) only doles out his affection and its accompanying cash in teaspoon measures. Everyone has a secret hidden beneath their quiet luxury clothing and none of the three Sinclair daughters are happy with their lot.
The highlight among them is The Vampire Diaries' Candice King, although it is strange to see her playing an embittered mother when she doesn't look much different from vampiric Caroline.
When Cady isn't making ominous reference to her impending amnesia via voiceover, We Were Liars is largely a summer vibes machine with a big-budget soundtrack (HAIM! Hozier! Good Neighbours!) you'll be seeking out on Spotify. The sunny daytime is this show's domain, so much so you might find yourself squinting at the screen during the under-lit nighttime scenes.
Cady helpfully dyes her hair brown after her accident. But even with this visual aid, the hopscotching time frame between two summers can be confusing, much like Cady's own patchy memory of things. More Trending
The breathy voiceover doesn't do much to clue you in on what's happening when, since it starts to sound like Carrie Bradshaw's column word salad when you really tune into what she's quite repetitively saying.
But whenever you start to feel bogged down in the so-so teen melodrama, some big reveal will come from another corner of the show to pull you back in. This is the show's strength: it moves at a clip and there is always something barmy happening to one of the Sinclairs.
Unlike the best eat-the-rich mysteries, this is painfully lacking in the laughs department and probably takes itself a bit too seriously. But you won't regret sticking around for the final reveal to plug the gap in Cady's memory: it's so bonkers it's beyond the guessing game.
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We Were Liars is available to stream on Prime Video from June 18.
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