The Girlfriend builds its psychological tension around two women and the man between them. Robin Wright’s Laura Sanderson is a wealthy gallery owner who regards control as a form of protection. When her son Daniel brings Cherry home, suspicion turns into jealousy and then a sustained private war. Neither woman offers the viewer a comfortably reliable position.
The storytelling is its main strength. Scenes return from Laura’s and Cherry’s different perspectives, repeatedly making an apparently clear judgment uncertain. It is not a simple exercise in identifying the good woman and the bad one. The interest lies in how quickly sympathy can shift when another account changes what we thought we understood.
Wright gives Laura a cold, contained intensity rooted in fear of losing her son. Olivia Cooke supplies a different combination of vulnerability and calculation. Their exchanges drive the series, while Daniel functions more as contested ground than as a powerful counterweight. That imbalance suits a story chiefly concerned with the women’s struggle.
The clear, elegant and almost sterile images reflect the damage beneath Laura’s comfortable life. Restrained music leaves room for dialogue, silence and loaded looks. The production is polished without burying the psychological conflict under decoration.
Some twists are too carefully engineered, supporting characters can be thin and the six episodes do not all maintain the same momentum. Even so, the escalation generally feels persuasive. A respectable domestic surface gradually exposes possessiveness, lies and fear of not being enough, whether as a mother or partner.
I give The Girlfriend 4 out of 5 stars. It is not flawless, but Wright and Cooke make its shifting trust and crumbling façades compelling. The small acts of control are often more unsettling than the larger turns.
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