Love & Death is Big Little Lies for Boomers

Nicole Kidman may be famous for her divorce, but her new true crime project is a masterclass in how to make adultery a big bloody mess.

Elizabeth Olsen in Love & Death.

Thinking about having an affair? Behold, a brand new guide – produced by Nicole Kidman, on how not to have one.

The first rule of Affair Club, according to the new miniseries Love & Death, is maybe don’t tell people about it. Number two, if your dangerous liaison requires strategy sessions and butcher’s paper, it’s more of a trust exercise than an exciting tryst. And thirdly, try not to kill anyone, especially your paramour’s actual partner.

If you’re into true crime, block out the next week, because Love & Death is for you. It’s like a tube of Pringles — once you start you can’t stop.

There are three certainties guaranteed in this new series: death, Texas and learning new things, especially about this sordid, blood-soaked true story and its axe-wielding protagonist, Candy Montgomery.

“She was a normal suburban housewife. All she wanted was a little fun with another man. She never really expected to kill her lover’s wife,” is how the Texas Monthly canvassed the case of “Candy Montgomery’s Affair” in the 1980s with the series Love and Death in Silicon Prairie. A book followed then a handful of less-than-stellar TV projects.

Love & Death is the third celluloid iteration of Montgomery’s life — a small town, charming and charismatic housewife who was tried and acquitted of killing her lover’s wife in 1980. The deceased also happened to be her best friend from church.

The first series appeared in 1990 with Barbara Hershey in the title role. Most recently in 2022 there was another made-for-TV series, titled Candy, starring Jessica Biel. The performance was panned for being flat. Her hair was not.

Now this latest tale of Lone Star lust and Stepford-like boredom is here and the behind-the-scenes crew is just as strong as the ensemble cast, who also have great hair but deliver award-worthy performances.

Love & Death is written by David E. Kelley (of Ally McBeal and Big Little Lies fame). The pilot premiered at South By Southwest earlier this year to rave critical reviews.

“If I had written this stuff and made it up, they would have revoked my writer’s licence, which has been taken away before, but this time it would have been for good,” Kelley told a post-screening panel at the time. “I really felt more like a stenographer than a writer in this one. The story was so juicy and the characters were complex and human. It’s not often you find a nostalgic, warm community series that ends with an axe murderer.”

Lesli Linka Glatter (the celebrated and award-winning director of Homeland, Mad Men and True Blood) directs and Kidman serves as a producer. The cast is led by Elizabeth Olsen and Breaking Bad’s Jesse Plemons.

The cinematography lifts heavily from Big Little Lies and adds elements of Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides — long, slow, panning shots of faces, places and crime scenes add to the suspense, melancholy and tension of the series.

Love & Death is like premenstrual syndrome personified. The agony, the manic turns and the discomfort of some scenes — such as when Candy has to teach her lover Alan Gore (played by Plemons), an adult human man, what a “French kiss” is — all comes to a head with the gory death of his wife, Betty.

You soon realise why they’re all acting so stir crazy. It’s due to them being bored and boring — I mean, it was small-town Texas at the turn of the “free love”-to-“greed is good” decade.

After all settling down early, having kids and moving to the suburbs, most of the characters are asking: “Is this all there is?”

None ask more so, or louder, than Montgomery. After a collision at a church volleyball game she decides to ask Gore — a timid, tired bloke just trying to keep his uptight wife happy — if he would like to have an affair as he’s “fall-in-love-proof”.

Jesse Plemons and Elizabeth Olsen in Love & Death

When first meeting Montgomery there’s lots to love; she’s sassy, warm, universally loved, a real “good girl”. She’s got the looks of a southern belle and the smarts of a senator. She’s taking a creative-writing class, “an advanced” course, to fill the void in her soul. Her husband Pat, the sensible, safe and “good with numbers” guy — played by Almost Famous star Patrick Fugit — prefers to watch late-night TV than read her musings, so she orchestrates an affair with Gore, who makes stale white bread look enticing, exotic and exciting.

The first three episodes set up the dynamic of the cast, before any blood is even spilt. It turns out adultery is more of a sin than homicide in this town and Candy handles the cops better than being ostracised by her God-fearing community.

Olsen has the bone structure of an angel and the talent she displays should surely shake up the Emmys nominations. The show calls for a strong female lead who can say just as much with a raised eyebrow as she can with a soliloquy. Olsen delivers.

The southern drawl seems effortless for the California-born and raised actor, who is the younger sister of the Olsen twins, of Full House fame. Those former child actors, Mary-Kate and Ashley, are now better known for their $700 T-shirts and fashion label, The Row.

“[Candy] was just so optimistic and resilient and hopeful and striving for more and had a deep hole in her life … She didn’t have any resources trying to fill it. So she’s doing the best she can with what she’s got,” Elizabeth Olsen said during SXSW.

Olsen has been a sucker for niche roles during her short, yet critically acclaimed career. Her most well-known role – on mainstream TV at least – was from WandaVision.

This time, her turn as a restless Boomer housewife is just as good, if not better, than the show’s soundtrack.

A particular scene featuring Montgomery in sequins spliced with her lover undertaking marriage counselling to the dulcet tones of the Bee Gees is beguiling.

That’s what Love & Death is – weirdly enchanting. It lulls the viewer into the world of this small community who love church, God and gossip.

Love & Death airs on Binge from Thursday, April 27.