The Girlfriend review: Olivia Cooke and Robin Wright turn obsession, motherhood and desire into a psychological battlefield

From one of the initial shots, the series makes its intentions clear. Laura and Daniel’s reunion happens not around a dinner table, not in a warm living room, but in the family home’s basement pool. They drink beers in their swimsuits, later sliding into the sauna, where Daniel shyly admits he’s seeing someone new. His attempt to frame Cherry as unique –– “You remind me of her” –– is swiftly undercut by Laura’s ice-cold response: “She reminds you of me.” This is not merely a mother-son bond; it’s a portrait of intimacy and attachment drawn with such blurred boundaries that it unsettles the viewer. There is nothing unlawful or overtly sexual about their relationship, but the way Laura and Daniel interact, the casual closeness, the lack of distance, makes us instinctively uneasy. The series deliberately thrives on that discomfort, pushing us to question not their intentions, but the intensity of their dependency on one another.

Robin Wright and Laurie Davidson in a still from The Girlfriend

The brilliance of The Girlfriend is its refusal to hand out easy answers. Is Cherry manipulative, scheming her way into wealth, status and power? Or is Laura the obsessive mother who cannot let her son grow up? Each episode loops back, replaying moments through shifting perspectives. What looks like seduction in one light turns innocent in another; what feels like paranoia suddenly reads as truth. The audience, like Daniel, is tugged in both directions, manipulated at every turn.

The first three episodes, directed by Wright herself, are the strongest of the lot. Wright knows exactly how to set the stage: she builds the architecture of suspicion and desire with precision, giving us characters who don’t feel like archetypes but like real, dangerous people. Her Laura is a fascinating contradiction, coolly graceful yet deeply controlling, a mother who cannot bear to relinquish her son’s affection. Opposite her, Olivia Cooke delivers Cherry as a whirl of charm and mischief, a woman whose every smile can be read two ways: affectionate or calculating. Their dynamic is electric. Scenes of confrontation between the two feel like duels, subtle at first, with barbed compliments and lingering glances, before exploding into outright hostility. To watch Wright and Cooke spar is to witness two actors gleefully peeling away their characters’ civility, layer by poisonous layer.

If The Girlfriend excels at anything, it is manipulation. The series is almost mischievous in how it toys with its audience. Every scene you watch feels trustworthy until the next moment replays it from another angle, another POV, nudging you to question your judgment. Who is lying? Who is deluded? Who, if anyone, can be believed? This narrative sleight of hand is both the show’s greatest strength and, at times, its weakness. On one hand, it keeps the thriller alive across six episodes, ensuring viewers are never complacent. On the other, the repetition can occasionally feel indulgent, stretching moments that might have packed a sharper punch had they been left ambiguous. Still, there is a thrill in the confusion itself, in realising that the show has pulled you into its web as effectively as Laura or Cherry pulls Daniel into theirs.

Laurie Davidson and Olivia Cooke in a still from The Girlfriend

The show does not shy away from being steamy, but its eroticism is never just surface-level titillation. Instead, it is weaponised –– desire becomes a tool, intimacy a battlefield. When Daniel looks at Cherry, we wonder if it’s love or enchantment. When Laura touches her son’s shoulder or lingers too close, we shift uncomfortably, questioning whether her protectiveness masks something far more suffocating.

This deliberate discomfort is the point of the series. The Girlfriend unsettles not only because of what happens, but because of how it makes us feel while watching. We are implicated, drawn into judging, choosing, doubting, just as Daniel is. By the time the finale arrives, with a confrontation that tips into tragedy, the viewer has been played as thoroughly as any character. Even with its psychological grip, The Girlfriend cannot entirely escape moments of indulgence and slack. After the tight direction of Wright’s opening episodes, the back half sometimes loses steam, leaning too heavily on melodramatic beats. Certain twists feel telegraphed, and Daniel, the man supposedly at the centre of this tug-of-war, occasionally feels frustratingly underwritten, less a person and more a rope being yanked between two forces.

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Yet even in its weaker stretches, the series holds your attention. It is stylishly shot, with an opulent sense of setting that underscores the stakes of class and money. And it never stops asking its central, uncomfortable question: when two women are fighting for a man’s life, how much of that fight is about love, and how much is about power?

The Girlfriend is a psychological thriller that seduces and unsettles in equal measure. It is a story of women locked in a battle for control, told with style, intensity, and a willingness to make its audience squirm. It is wickedly entertaining, a show that knows the oldest truth of them all: men may believe the world is theirs, but in reality, women are the ones holding the threads.

The Girlfriend
The Girlfriend Cast – Robin Wright, Olivia Cooke, Laurie Davidson, Waleed Zuaiter
The Girlfriend Director – Robin Wright, Andrea Harkin
The Girlfriend Rating – 3.5/5