It’s a tale as old as time – mother meets son’s new girlfriend, and doesn’t think she’s good enough. But House of Cards queen Robin Wright’s new directorial project The Girlfriend takes this timeless dynamic as a premise and runs with it to some seriously dark places.
Set mostly in a wealthy pocket of London, the TV adaptation of Michelle Frances’ novel – starring Wright as overprotective mother Laura and House of the Dragon‘s Olivia Cooke as her son Daniel (Laurie Davidson)’s new girlfriend Cherry – is about much more than just a tussle between potential in-laws. It explores class, privilege, trauma and grief, and the ways that they can all play into a toxic rivalry between women.
The competition between Laura and Cherry reaches some seriously dramatic, gross-out levels. Think J-Lo’s Monster In Law meets Promising Young Woman. And the show’s soundtrack is perfectly curated, with The Velvet Underground’s Femme Fatale used with artistic precision to illustrate Cooke’s Cherry and an aspect of her plight, as well as the blaring of Wet Leg’s Chaise Longue during a rather sexy scene – taking place on, you guessed it, a chaise longue.
The series switches between Laura and Cherry’s perspectives, causing us to revisit certain scenes and question who exactly is in the right, if anyone? Wright’s directing inspired her to push the envelope, with the depiction of what she describes as a “perverse” love triangle. Prepare to be shocked, tickled and compelled in equal measure.
GLAMOUR sat down with Robin and Olivia to talk portraying “layered women”, feeling safe while filming sex scenes and the ways in which we demonise female ambition.
In this series, we see both the lead female roles acting rather horrendously – why is that important and liberating to see on screen? Instead of just being a one-dimensional mother-in-law or girlfriend?
Robin: It’s the truth. Women are that way. We’re very layered. Cross us, watch out. I think we all have that capability.
Olivia: Exactly. So it’s incredibly relatable to watch women being able to go to just the edge of their sanity and then beyond.
Robin: The edge of their sanity. I love that we’re all living on the edge of our sanity.
Olivia: Aren’t we? We are. I’ve passed it a long time ago.
We see a lot of female anger depicted on screen – was that empowering to portray? Was there anything in particular you used to channel this emotion?
Olivia: The world that we’re living in, it’s quite easy to just turn on the news and be like, “Perfect.”
Robin: Yeah, ditto. It’s also being a mum. It’s intrinsic. If you feel that your baby cub is in peril, those horns come out… It’s a natural instinct to just annihilate.
Christopher Raphael