2 hours ago
5
I can’t say I had “Jack Whitehall stars with David ‘The X Files/ Californication’ Duchovny in glossy TV thriller” on my 2025 bingo card, but here we are, and a good time with it can be had by all. Alongside, perhaps, a smidge of national pride to see the daft lad from Fresh Meat, Bad Education and Travels With My Father all grown up and holding his own.
The glossy thriller in question is Malice, in which Whitehall plays Adam, a tutor promoted to manny (male nanny, for those not au fait with rich people’s terms), who is bent – for reasons as yet unknown – on ruining high-rolling businessman Jamie Tanner (Duchovny). Whether he has it in for the rest of the Tanner family and friends, or they are just doomed to be collateral damage, is not clear, but that doesn’t spoil the machiavellian fun.
Adam arrives at the Tanners’ opulent Greek island estate as tutor to the children of Jamie’s guests, Jules (Christine Adams) and Damien (Raza Jaffrey), who are very much the beta setting for the Tanners’ alpha display. Adam quickly makes himself interesting (with his knowledge about the surrounding islands’ mythic heritage, thanks to studying classics at university) and useful (with his knowledge of cocktail and calamari-making and willingness to do domestic chores while still having time to accompany Jamie to local strip clubs).
As he goes, he gathers information about his hosts (including the suggestion that they are hiding as much as holidaying, in the hope that “a situation” involving their oldest child will resolve itself); flings Jamie’s passport in the sea; poisons food; flirts with Jamie’s wife, Nat (Carice van Houten); and sets various traps for the unwary family and their employers. Some close quickly. Some take their time.
While Adam is grifting and plotting, Jamie and Duchovny are having a great time. Jamie because he is a rich, entitled asshole insulated from the consequences of his actions – at least so far – by his wealth and power; Duchovny because rich, entitled assholes in glossy TV thrillers get all the best lines. The part of Jamie plays to all Duchovny’s strengths as an actor: roving intelligence, dry wit and an unassailable detachment from proceedings. We believe in him as a ruthless multimillionaire and as a man good enough not to deserve whatever is coming at him.
By the end of the first two episodes, which were all that were available for review, Adam has his feet firmly under the Tanner table – which has now moved from Greece to their London mansion, and is overseen by a large portrait of the happy family. Malice is very good but it is not subtle. (See also: the snake in the family pool early on; several characters voicing some variant of: “That Adam fellow – I find him disquieting in some indefinable way”; and Adam standing over the drunk, unconscious Jamie and telling him he could kill him right now but won’t because he wants him to suffer as he has.) That is, of course, a large part of the fun.
Some ways have been cleared. Some unexpected obstacles – a dogged Greek detective assigned to the mugging of the man with whom Jamie has a longstanding dispute over the land he built on, or a stomach unusually resistant to poisoned avocado – have been overcome. More, doubtless, will arise as the family start to wonder why their perfect lives are falling apart and whether this new guy is as perfect as he appears. Is there something nasty in the gilded woodhouse?
It’s The White Lotus meets The Talented Mr Ripley, of course, tapping into viewers’ distaste for, and fascination with, the lives of the fabulously well-off, and eternal attraction to the underdog who seems set to bring the whole shining thing down.
It’s a great ride, and Whitehall acquits himself well in his first lead dramatic role, even if he is better at oblique menace than delivering straightforwardly murderous speeches. Duchovny is as skilled, nimble and charismatic as ever, giving us a Hank from Californication if he had gone into real estate rather than writing and made enough money to keep his chaos at bay. Moreish, bingeable stuff to take you happily through to Christmas.
