Une mère parfaite

This series has a original plot and the story is pretty well told. However, the last episode is atotal let down and makes you wonder whether the makers were out of money or if they simply forgot to finish the story decently. Well done but ends with a disappointment that ruins it all.

I ended up really enjoying this. The four episodes moved along well and thought the plot was pretty good. Definitely worth a watch. Though it switches between Paris and Berlin it is clear and not at all confusing. A good way to spend about four hours.

This got more annoying as it went on. Far, far too much padding, notably with the Berlin angle. It needs a good edit down. The final episode progressed at a snail's pace and was utterly tedious. In the end I didn't really care about any of characters with the exception, perhaps, of the lawyer played by Tomer Sisley.

This was tedious to watch. It's only four episodes long... and that's five episodes too many. By the end of the fourth episode I was fast-forrwarding to shorten the torture. The acting by the two female leads is so flat and lifeless that it might be the real crime in this series. Mother Hélène's face rarely moves much, and she spends a lot of time speaking in breathless, whispered tones. The viewer suspects that Hélène may in fact suffer from Resting B Face all the time, not just when her daughter stands accused of murder. And what police force would tolerate her messing about in an investigation like this? It feels totally unrealistic and frankly I wish they'd put her in jail too. (How do you say "entitled Karen" in French?) As for daughter Anya, she evokes no sympathy even at the outset. She made bad choices, and bad things happened to her. But that alone isn't enough to make her character or predicament intriguing to the viewer. Other characters in this slow-paced melodrama the just felt irrelevant and pointless through the entire story. Does it really matter in every episode if Lukas gets to finish his exams on time? Were various hospital scenes exploring the complications from little Farida's face transplant surgery necessary? Tangents anyone?? There were some twists and turns in here--and the ending certainly turns the tables on Anya. But by the time you get to the end, you just don't care anymore. You just want it finished.

I'd worked out whodunit by halfway through episode two but not why - that would come near the end of the final moments of the drama. But how could the cops be slower than me? In the face of continual lying and stories that didn't add up they seemed to be bending over backwards not to get the correct person convicted.

At the same time that all this was going on in Paris, another drama was playing out in Berlin. Neither the main plot in France nor the sub plots in Germany were particularly convincing; I'd have been more impressed if Lukas had turned out to be gay which looked for a while how things were going.

I'm not sure a French lawyer would have compromised his ethics as badly as Maître Duc. I can't imagine a British barrister doing what he did. That he wasn't up before the disciplinary committee for his known infractions was a wonder. As he himself said, lawyers aren't allowed to investigate themselves for obvious reasons. He was doing so openly.

The ending was equivocal. Did Hélène stop being the "perfect mother" and seek happiness instead or did she carry on with the sham? I don't think there'll be a second season so we shall never know.