Netflix’s new show Sirens is proving a hit on the streaming service, with viewers praising the performances of Julianne Moore, Meghann Fahy and Milly Alcock.
The dark comedy satire series is based on the play Elmeno Pea, which was written by Molly Smith Metzler – also the showrunner behind Netflix’s critically adored 2021 hit Maid, starring Margaret Qualley.
It stars Alcock and Fahy as sisters from a troubled background, while Moore is Michaela “Kiki” Kell, the eccentric wife of billionaire Peter (Kevin Bacon).
Fahy’s character Devon arrives at Peter and Michaela’s lavish beach estate to try and persuade her younger sister, Simone (Alock) to come home and help care for their ailing father (Bill Camp).
She is troubled by what she witnesses, including Simone’s unusually close and seemingly co-dependent relationship with Kiki, and what she perceives to be cult-like behaviour from Kiki and her cohort of rich friends.
Speaking to Variety, Metzler revealed that many details in the show were inspired by her time working at the Yacht Club in Martha’s Vineyard – including Kiki’s odd phrase, “Hey hey.”
“In my summers in Martha’s Vineyard, when I worked at the Yacht Club, I had noticed that they picked up each other’s way of saying things,” she said.
“One woman would come in with a new bracelet that just dropped in town, and then they’d all have it.”
She continued: “They did it with language, too, they had their own way of speaking and there was a contagion to it. In my mind, Michaela just sort of said it one day, and then Simone said it back, and it became something the two of them say. I just made it up.”
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In the same interview, Metzler explained that there was a similar story behind the locket worn by Kiki and the similar ones she gifts to her friends and to Simone.
“The lockets are a real thing in Nantucket Island,” she said. “It’s something you can only buy in Nantucket, they’re called basket necklaces, and they usually have ivory from Wales in them. But they’re very expensive, they’re handmade, and everyone in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard is wearing them.
“It’s a status symbol. You’re not in the club if you don’t have one. [Costume designer] Caroline Duncan made that happen, made all of them happen. It’s a great symbol of having arrived. You have the key, you have the necklace, but it’s a little culty. It’s a little like wearing a cross, like a religion. You know something that everyone else doesn’t.”
Sirens has received mixed reviews from critics, including a glowing five-star review from The Guardian and four stars from The Telegraph, the latter stating that it fails to match up to the likes of Succession but is still “preposterously entertaining”.
In a three-star review for The Independent, Katie Rosseinsky said there was “a lot going on” that had been crammed into five episodes.
“Inevitably, these disparate storylines sometimes jar with one another, and the tonal shifts can come at breakneck speed,” she wrote.
“Sometimes I found myself wishing that Devon and Simone’s relationship had been given a bit more space to breathe, because Fahy and Alcock have brilliantly believable sibling chemistry; the scenes where Simone allows her perfectly made-up mask to crack a little and leans on her older sister are especially powerful.
“As an eat-the-rich satire Sirens doesn’t entirely work; neither does it fully pull off its attempts to grapple with family dynamics and generational trauma. But as a colourful, unpredictable slice of slightly bonkers summer escapism? Like the siren songs of Greek myth, it’s irresistibly alluring.”
Sirens is available on Netflix now.
