Behind her eyes

Year of release : 2021

Run time : 47 min - 51 min / 6 episodes / 1 season

Genre : Mini Series / Psychological Thriller / Suspense / Mystery

The tv series were based on the novel of the same name by Sarah Pinborough, published in 2017.

The first episode opens with Louise who is getting ready for a night out. While waiting for her friend, who is ditching her, she meets David, and ends up having a sort of date. At the end of the night, he kisses her, but apologizes , leaving abruptly.

Next morning, at work, Louise gets to see her new boss is the man she met and kissed the night before, so panicking, she hides in the bathroom until he and his wife leave.

Louise is divorced, and has a son. She has nightmares due to what happened to her mother when she was young, sleepwalking while having them, one night waking up on the balcony.

David, who's a psychiatrist, doesn't seem to trust his wife,Adele, and gives her pills which she has to take in front of him (which she vomits after), and calls her every day at a certain hour, to make sure she's home.

 

When David and Louise finally meet in his office, Louise is acting as if she did something wrong the night before, as if she was supposed to know he was her boss, and married.

Adele bumps into Louise on the street, and asks her to go out with her, and somehow the two end up befriending. Adele tells Louise not to tell David about them meeting and talking, and in the last episode we find out why!

 

Louise tells Adele about her nightmares, and Adele looks up one of her old notebooks with Rob's name on it, telling her to do what it says to have lucid dreams, to escape the nightmare.

Rob was her friend when they were both in the rehab center, Rob for being a drug addict, Adele for going through a fire at her parents' estate (she is very rich, they have a castle), that David pulled her out of. In the memories, although it seems Rob is in love with Adele, he says he likes men.

Adele visits Louise's home ,and takes her to the gym and the spa,spending the whole day together. Adele takes Louise to her place, as David calls her every day at 2 o'clock, and she needs to be home.

Louise's ex husband wants to take their son on a month trip to France, as his new girlfriend is pregnant, and although she at first refuses to let him go, she lets him go at her friend's advice.

She starts reading and practicing what says in the notebook. Rob's diary also says He was having nightmares about zombies.

Louise takes a day off to be with her son when he leaves for France, calling in sick, and David pays her a visit in the evening, worried. And they start an affair.

Louise starts seeing Adele as a friend, and David as her lover, in a sort of weird threesome relationship. And she listens in on their phone conversations.

Adele keeps on telling Louise things about David and she believes it. She tells Louise to keep going at the exercises she needs to do, to stop having night terrors. One night she sees the door, and goes out of the nightmare into a wonderful dream.

Adele tells Louise more bad things about David and she believes it. So much so, it creates a rift between her and David. David goes as far as to ask her to quit her job or else, sounding like blackmail, and she believes even more the things Adele tells her about him (to the point she writes to the police), never thinking maybe Adele, the wife of the man she has an affair with, doesn't have her best interest at heart, and that maybe, David is trying to protect her.

Louise likes Adele, thinking her kind and generous,sad and lonely. When her friend gives her advice to walk away from this weird thing she has going on with the both of them, because the only one who's gonna get hurt is her, she doesn't like it. That was the best advice ever given to her. The next time she tells her something similar, she throws her out.

David has problems with a dr@g add1ct patient, who keeps on imposing on him, stalking him, who even shows up to his house when he's not there, seeing Adele who was hit by some youngsters while she was looking for dr@gs. And she takes advantage of it, telling him lies, and asking him to lie for her.

Speaking of dr@gs, Adele seems to have the same dr@g problem Rob had. At first one thinks maybe she's trying to deal with the guilt, but what if there's something more to it?

 

We find out Adele is doing astral projection through dreaming, and knows everything about her husband and Louise. That to me was a bit far fetched,but whatever, talking about a new level of stalking.

I personally enjoyed the movie, but the lead was too good, for her own good, which somehow made her stupid. I don't think anyone would have done what she did in those situations. I thought Louise to be one of the most stupid leads I've ever seen, because all the things she's doing is to her detriment. It probably also supposed to show she wasn't in the world much and doesn't have people skills, as in, can't read people, and she's too honest and the wrong people take advantage of her. Thing is, everything that happens, it's her own fault, it's the consequences to her actions!

Also,I think the series (probably the book also) relies on Louise being too kind / stupid, for everything to work! SPOILERS -If she didn't go into the dream world / astral projecting to rescue Adele (whom she already discovered was not her friend, and did everything from the getgo to mess with her), Adele / Rob would have died, so he had blind faith Louise was stupid enough to do it. If Louise would have minded her own business (and not interfere with Adele / Rob's plans) she would have had her happy ending.

And not just Louise, Adele too, as it's revealed at the end, because I wouldn't have trusted anyone would such a secret, especially a dr@g add1ct!

If you pay attention to Rob, he does say the things he could do if he lived Adele's life - he speaks of a frame, how much it costs, and how he could just get high forever with the money from it! This is not a person who wants to get clean and turn his life around (not to mention, in the rehab,he keeps on finding ways to get drugs), it's someone who wants to stay high forever, and just do nothing all day. It just seems like a miserable existence. I personally didn't like Rob, and the memories seemed pretty boring, but they're there to understand the characters, Rob and Adele .

The real Adele seemed nice, and so did David, who unluckily for him, because he was not being honest with what was going on in his marriage, and the mental problems his wife had, he pushed Louise away, making her think the worst of him, and best of her!

The visual effects were good, I loved the way the movie was shot.

The actors were at the top of their game. Simona Brown who plays Louise, has to go through all the motions in the movie, and towards the end, has this weird look on her face SPOILER from the moment she becomes Rob, she looks exactly like David said about Adele, a Stepford wife! It was chilling! I can't believe David was oblivious to how she changed!

The soundtrack was good.

The series received mixed reviews, critics / reviewers mostly complaining about the twist, among other things, and I completely understand. SPOILERS When revealed Rob k1lled Adele and took over her body, he does to her what he did to Louise, just that, in the past, he had to go into the woods after getting high with what looked like a pretty powerful dr@g which after one takes it passes out .How could he take it-without being seen- and still be able to walk normally to the forest, speak, do the exercise and astral project ?!

STILL SPOILERS - At the end when Louise rescues Adele, she just goes to sleep in front of her house, falling asleep immediately and going immediately into the astral world, entering her body. WHY?! Why did she think of this instead of calling the police, the firemen or just doing nothing, as she knew this was a bad person?! Also, why did she think of this, why would she think it worked,since she was supposed to still be in her body?!

STILL SPOILERS - Also, I would have liked to have seen more of the time when Rob stayed at the castle with Adele and David, and see how his feelings grew for him, making him maybe hate her and love him more,unable to have him. It seems when Rob said how much he loved Adele, I think he loved her life, and wanted her life with everything in it. He was in love with her life. His sister was right, he was a bad person.

Viewer discretion is advised, as the movie contains nudity and dr@g use .

The movie is distributed by Netflix.

Rating : It's so money!