Depictions of the super-rich on screen reflect the times

The Economist | September 9th 2024

FIRST, PICK an approachable avatar. In “The Perfect Couple”, a glitzy new drama on Netflix, this role is played by Amelia (Eve Hewson), a zookeeper engaged to marry into the filthy-rich Winbury clan. In “Succession” it is Greg, doofus cousin of the plutocratic Roy family. In “The Great Gatsby” it is Nick, who tells how the opulent Buchanans “smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money”.

Such characters are ambassadors from the regular world to Moneyland. They board the yacht or private jet on your behalf, mapping this charmed, cursed kingdom with outsiderish eyes. Moneyland is a red-hot destination: “The Perfect Couple” is one of many recent films and tv shows set there. It is a place with no fixed co-ordinates but recurring topography, a land of striking change but bedrock continuity.

Often, they kill each other—for if Moneyland is an island, it is also a murder scene. Like “The White Lotus”, “The Perfect Couple” opens with a tease. Someone has been drowned on the eve of Amelia’s wedding to Benji (Billy Howle), the wet middle son of Tag Winbury (Liev Schreiber) and Greer (Nicole Kidman, Moneyland’s icy matriarch of choice). But who? And out of the assembled sociopaths, whodunnit?

America’s megarich are screen fixtures. But in Reagan-era shows like “Dallas” and “Dynasty” they evoked admiration more than contempt. Storytellers have often criticised them, but in general for how they get their money or what they do with it, not just the fact of having it. Think of “Wall Street” (“Greed is good”) or “There Will Be Blood” (“I drink your milkshake”). The heroes of “Trading Places” beat the rich villains by becoming rich themselves.

Today’s tales of Moneyland, by contrast, are uniformly scathing—and have little interest in where the moolah comes from. Some feature a lazily typecast tech baron; elsewhere the wealth is simply inherited. Apart from Greer, author of novels such as “Death in Dubai”, the trustafarian Winburys spend their time boozing, taking drugs and having affairs. Lots of Americans enjoyed “Downton Abbey”, with its archaic class hierarchy. “The Perfect Couple” is a country-house drama with better weather and NDAs.

If their money can’t buy happiness, nor, alas, could Netflix’s largesse buy a decent script. The problem is not just the clunky omens and caricatures (a Slavic maid puts vodka in her boss’s smoothies, a French woman champions adultery). People say things like, “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want this.” The Winburys’ vituperative eldest son, Tom (Jack Reynor), is a highlight, and even he is a cut-price Roman Roy, the scatological scion in “Succession”.

Still, “The Perfect Couple”, an instant hit, gives today’s viewers the two treats they want on a trip to Moneyland. They see the rich suffer. At the same time, they indulge in the age-old pleasure of voyeurism, ogling the watercraft and monogrammed robes in lingering shots. The rich are faithless, venal and remote, yet even now, beneath the scorn, they retain their fascination and allure. Satirising them is a form of homage.

Another eternal truth of Moneyland is hidden in the home of a local cop, Dan Carter (Michael Beach), which the camera visits fleetingly. Carter is presented as a salt-of-the-earth counterpoint to the indolent, haughty Winburys. Actually, by most real-world standards, his pad is pretty plush, too. On TV, as in life, the super-rich are often alibis as well as adversaries: they allow the comfortably affluent to see their lifestyles as ordinary. The rich are always other people—and Moneyland always lies elsewhere. ■

Date published: 1 April 2025

Category: Back Story columns on culture