Natalie Portman investigates several mysterious murders in Lady In The Lake, an ambitious, gorgeously staged, often magnificent yet sometimes frustratingly cluttered miniseries based on a novel by Laura Lippman. In 1960's Baltimore the murder of an aight year old girl prompts Maddie Schwartz (Portman) to gravitate away from her marriage to a persnickety Jewish businessman (Brett Gelman) and take it upon herself to not only solve that one but the apparent suspicious drowning of one Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram), an African American woman dredged up from the bottom of a lake. From there it launches into a horde of subplots that get so complicated and fill the narrative so full to the brim that at times it feels like each and every episode has enough content to be its own series. That's the issue here is that by the time all is said and done it's tough to discern or remember exactly what *was* said and was done, and there are several plot points that still feel muddy to me. Nevertheless, the performances are all excellent, Portman is fiercely committed as ever, Ingram is a revelation as Cleo as they're supported by all sorts of recognizable faces including the always terrific Pruitt Taylor Vince, Noah Jupe, Mikey Madison, Dylan Arnold, Byron Powers, Josiah Cross and The Wire's resident despicable crime kingpin Wood Harris here playing, you guessed it, another despicable crime kingpin. The attention to 60's period detail in terms of both production design and sociopolitical issues is admirable and it all feels very well mounted. But yeah.. the story is like accidentally opening a shaken up beer can and having everything inside erupt all at once over the course of seven very hectic, often disorienting episodes that should have been more measured, more paced... and far more succinctly explained at the end of the day.
