Lady in the Lake review: uneven drama about two murders

Lady in the Lake does have some rewards for sticking with it through all 7 episodes, but there are plenty of obstacles in the way. I almost quit watching halfway through, but now I’m glad I stayed with it.

Lady in the Lake tells parallel stories about two women that intersect after a time, but that seem unrelated at first. It’s set in Baltimore in the 1960s and takes a pointed look at racism and sexism. The story begins with two murders. First is a young Jewish girl who wanders away from her parents during a parade. Her body is found frozen by the lake. The second murder is a Black woman who is thrown dead into a fountain structure in the middle of said lake. The fountain kept her body hidden (at least for a while).

Maddie (Natalie Portman) is a Jewish housewife who knows the missing child. She is the one who finds her body by the lake. Maddie is not the most likable of characters. She wants to be a reporter and is ruthless about getting there. She leaves her husband Milton (Brett Gelman) and teenage son (Noah Jupe), moves into The Bottoms where most the the people are Black and the apartments are cheap.

While she’s living there, Maddie starts an affair with a Black policeman, Ferdie Platt (Y’lan Noel).

The second main character is Cleo (Moses Ingram). Cleo narrates the entire story, even though she is the woman identified in the lake. Cleo has two sons and a husband (Byron Bowers) who thinks he can make a living telling jokes. Cleo has several jobs. She’s a bartender in a club belonging to the local kingpin Shell Gordon (Wood Harris). She keeps his books – both the clean ones and the dirty ones.

The Baltimore police are all over the case of the little white girl. They ignore completely the case of the missing Black woman. Maddie uses both those stories to lie and claw her way into a job at the Baltimore newspaper where sexism is rampant and she’s discounted in every way.

There are many characters and threads involved in telling two stories woven together in this way. There are twists and surprises, too. People are arrested, but not necessarily the right people.

The story was told in a number of ways that felt off putting to me. A lot of dreams involving lambs. Some fever dreams that were hallucinatory. Lots of flashbacks, which is okay because they were needed to tie the two stories into one. When the two stories started to intersect is when it got more interesting. It all came together and made sense in the last episode.

Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram were both excellent. They had very different parts, personalities, and goals and both handled their parts well. I also thought Y’lan Noel did an excellent job.

The series was created and directed by Alma Har’el, based on a book by Laura Lippman. I don’t give it the highest ratings, but found it satisfying by the end.