Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Girl Before’ On HBO Max, About Two Women, A Mourning Architect And A Minimalist House

Admit it. You like the psychological thrillers where a woman (unfortunately, it’s almost always a woman) who makes a lot of mistakes and comes under the spell of someone who proves to be very dangerous. You can see all the signs while sitting on your couch… Why can’t they? Most of these types of shows and movies have resided on cable channels like Lifetime. But The Girl Before is a British import that has an impressive cast. Despite that, it still feels like the kind of show that will prompt you to yell at the screen. Read on for more.

THE GIRL BEFORE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The exterior of a modern, minimalist house. Inside its stark interior, a man is cleaning off a stone landing, tears in his eyes.

The Gist: We see this house being shown in two different time periods. In one, a real estate agent shows the place to Emma Matthews (Jessica Plummer) and her boyfriend Simon (Ben Hardy). Three years later, another real estate agent shows the house to Jane Cavendish (Gugu Mbatha-Raw).

They both find out that the architect who built the house, Edward Monkford (David Oyelowo), has a very long list of rules for anyone renting the house, from what you can put in the kitchen to how much of your own clothes you can store in the closet. He also gives a psychological test to all applicants. He puts the renters through all this in exchange for a very below-market rent.

Simon hates the idea of this place, but Emma thinks it’ll be a fresh start after a burglar held her at gunpoint in their current flat. For Jane, she’s still in mourning after her daughter was stillborn. She admires Edward’s minimalist aesthetic and would rather get a fresh start herself.

Edward interviews prospective renters, and when Emma and Simon come in, Emma is very eager to please, while Simon acts like a big wanker. Despite Simon’s dickishness and Emma spilling coffee on Edward’s papers, her application is accepted. During Jane’s interview, she finds out about the data the house’s computer system collects and finds out why he doesn’t live there — he was going to build a house on that property before his wife and child died in an accident.

During Emma and Simon’s first days there, they basically break most of the rules, including having a party there. Jane revels in the quiet, but wonders why she keeps getting flowers. One day, she finds out who’s been leaving them: Simon, who tells Jane that Emma died in that house three years earlier, supposedly due to an accident.

The day after the party, a hungover Emma and Simon are greeted at the door by the detectives investigating the burglary; they recover her phone, which was used to film the burglar sexually assaulting Emma. She never revealed the assault because he threatened to send out the video to her contacts if she did. Simon insensitively takes her silence personally, leading Emma to kick him out. She also finds out what happened to Edward’s wife and child — and that she and his wife look very much alike.

Edward goes to Jane’s office to apologize for the flower incident; they go for a coffee where they find out more about each other’s losses in life. Edward says he wants a relationship with Jane, but a very unconventional one. Oh, and it’s no coincidence that Jane looks pretty much like Emma.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Girl Before plays out like a higher class version of Sleeping With The Enemy. In a lot of ways it’s a better-acted version of a Lifetime woman-in-danger movie.

Our Take: JP Delaney (the pen name of Tony Strong) adapted The Girl Before from his 2017 novel of the same name, and it certainly has the feel of a high-gloss prestige TV production, with A+ actors Mbatha-Raw, Oyelowo and Plummer all putting in their standard great performances as the leads. But in reality, the show is a pulpy woman-in-danger thriller whose beats aren’t exactly going to come as a surprise to anyone who’s familiar with the genre (or watched Netflix’s recent parody The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window.)

Delaney, cowriter Marissa Lestrade, and director Lisa Brühlmann aren’t even trying to hide the twists and turns in this story. It’s pretty apparent that both Emma and Jane look like each other, which leads you to believe they look like Edward’s dead wife, so the reveal at the end of the episode is helpful because it means the writers aren’t trying to play the viewers for suckers.

The restrictive house rules, the staircase without a banister, the fact that Edward is so charming and creepy at the same time… All of it points to a bad ending for Emma and likely a bad one for Jane if she doesn’t come to her senses.

The eye-rolling moments can be a little much at times. It feels like any person with even a bit of sense would have bolted from any number of red flags being waved in their faces. But the fun in this series is from watching both of these women make these mistakes through your fingers as you put your hands over your eyes, or yelling at the screen when someone is about to make a life-threatening mistake. If you’re a fan of those kinds of shows and movies, then you get the added bonus of performances that actually convey authentic emotions.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Jane calls Edward and takes him up on his offer to start a relationship after first turning him down. He plays with a model of the house’s layout, complete with a figurine that looks like his late wife.

Sleeper Star: Ben Hardy is in both timelines as Simon, who has to play both the insensitive prat and the guy who loves Emma so much that he will likely try to rescue her from Edward’s clutches. That balance is hard to accomplish.

Most Pilot-y Line: “A word of advice, Simon: You never apologize for someone you love who makes you look like a prick.” We’ll have to parse this line out more to figure out if it’s brilliant or makes zero sense.

Our Call: STREAM IT, especially if you like woman-in-peril thrillers. The Girl Before may boast great performances and a bit of a higher aesthetic than your average Lifetime movie, but it’s not pretending to be something it’s not, and we appreciate that.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.