The tone of this gracefully crafted adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel is tender and mysterious, imbued with a soft literary quality. It’s mostly based on the fictitious Scribbly Gum island, a picturesque location situated close to Sydney, where property presumably costs more than the gross GDP of several countries and almost all its tiny population belong to the same family. Like every family they conceal secrets, but given this is a mystery-thriller – executive produced by Nicole Kidman, no less – those secrets are particularly big and juicy.
Across the show’s six-part arc, various skeletons are pried from the closet by a protagonist whose task is to interrupt the status quo and act as an agent of change. This is Sophie (Teresa Palmer), a likable journalist in her late 30s who inherits a property not from the bank of mum and dad, but from a rather less common depository: the bank of an ex-boyfriend’s relative who barely knew her. The reason the now-deceased Connie (Angela Punch McGregor) bequeathed it to her is one of several key mysteries, slowly and tastefully revealed.
Another mystery concerns the disappearance many moons ago of a young couple whose baby was found and raised by Connie and her sister Rose (Miranda Richardson). The baby grew up to be Enigma (Helen Thomson), who, like the rest of the family, has cashed in on the mystery, using it to attract tourists to the island, where they’re welcomed with a pre-rehearsed spiel.
Questions abound. An enigmatic letter to Sophie, written by Connie, concludes with a suggestion that the protagonist may meet the love of her life on Scribbly Gum. We can’t be sure how to interpret Connie’s hippy-dippy prophecy – whether things will spill over into the magical. The series builds an interesting psychological space, brimming with the potential for something fantastic. The windows to this world are open, and many things could drift inside.
There’s quite a few characters to keep track of, each vividly written and performed. Assisting Sophie in her investigations is the initially hostile Veronika (Danielle Macdonald, recently great in The Tourist), whose parents are Ron (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor) and Connie’s daughter Margie (Susan Prior). Enigma’s daughter is Grace (Claude Scott-Mitchell), who’s married to Callum (Uli Latukefu), and has recently experienced a traumatic birth. There’s also Sophie’s ex Thomas (Charlie Garber), who’s faffing about on the island, having been kicked out of his home by his wife.
Performances are very impressive across the board; in fact this is one of the best ensemble casts from any Australian TV show in recent years. The always reliable Teresa Palmer brings to the lead role a timeless, complicated radiance, and a face full of nuances and enigmas. There were times when I looked at her eyes and wondered: is that a twinkle of light or perhaps something darker, something haunted? It’s a beautifully balanced portrayal.
Claude Scott-Mitchell is also excellent as the plaintive Grace, a struggling mother and lost soul who shares a fraught history with Enigma. You can feel the walls between them; the scars that haven’t healed. The Last Anniversary is great at capturing the interpersonal consequences of events in and beyond our control: those things that draw us together and push us apart.
Sprinkled throughout the series are some rich atmospheric embellishments. I was particularly fond of a surreal, sensitively staged scene in the second episode, where a character looks through a window into a room where an event from her past is taking place. It pipes intrigue into an otherwise standard flashback, fluidly merging timelines into a single mise en scène and using space to reveal information. The show might wrap up a tad neatly, but it’s still very well made: full of big reveals balanced by surprising details.
The Last Anniversary streams on Binge in Australia from 27 March and AMC+ in the US from 30 March. It will be released in the UK on BBC later this year
