Liane Moriarty fans know the drill:a quietly discontented middle-class family,a mystery interwoven into this domestic saga and a surprise twist. It’s all present and correct in this glossy adaptation of Moriarty’s 2021 bestselling novel (the author is one of the executive producers),in which great performances compensate for a certain predictability.
Sam Neill and Annette Bening as Stan and Joy Delaney.Jasin Bolin/Peacock
Apples Never Fall,like most of Moriarty’s novels,was set in Sydney,but here the action has been transplanted to Florida (but filmed in Queensland) and centres on the Delaney family.
Stan () and Joy (Annette Bening) have just sold their successful tennis training academy and are ready to embrace retirement. The entire family’s lives have revolved around tennis:Stan was a former star turned coach whoalmostcoached the world’s best player,and Joy was a champion who sacrificed playing at Wimbledon to have a family.
Their four adult children – hippyish free spirit Amy (Alison Brie),yuppie venture capitalist Troy (Jake Lacy),laid-back surfer Logan (Australian Conor Merrigan Turner) and youngest daughter Brie (another relative newcomer,Australian Essie Randles) – all grew up playing tennis,but none achieved the prodigy status Stan would have liked. And Stan – Neill in one of his most gruff turns – never lets any of them forget,either through passive-aggressive asides or outright hostility.
The Delaney siblings:Troy (Jake Lacy),Brie (Essie Randles),Amy (Alison Brie) and Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner).Jasin
Unsurprisingly,there are simmering tensions from all quarters and a family dinner in the first 15 minutes sets the tone:Stan’s bitterness colours his interactions with everyone,and Joy tries to play peacekeeper between him and the children.
Each of these now tennis-averse offspring are also slightly lost. Amy can’t hold down a job or a relationship;money-focused Troy’s marriage has ended,and now he’s seeing his boss’s wife;Logan’s long-term partner is moving away,but he can’t bring himself to leave his comfort zone and go with her;and Brie is questioning whether her upcoming marriage to Gina (Paula Andrea Placido) is the right move. But it’s Joy’s resentments that bubble to the surface first,and,mostly in flashback – the story jumps around in time – we see her and Stan arguing ferociously.
But when a young woman,Savannah (Georgia Flood),appears at their door,bleeding and seeking help,Joy finds renewed purpose and bonds with her. Stan takes a while to come around,but eventually also accepts Savannah into their empty nest. (These two have evidently not watched many horror movies.) If it seems odd,the Delaney offspring are at least suitably suspicious of this stranger. And when Joy goes missing (this isn’t a spoiler:her absence is revealed in the first few minutes),Savannah – who left after a heated family argument revealed a long-held secret that caused an even greater fracture in Stan and Joy’s marriage – is top of their suspect list.
But soon Stan,who’s been telling Joy’s friends at the tennis club that she’s too sick to play and dismissing the kids’ worries about their missing mum,begins to look like the prime suspect. The Delaney siblings are forced to revisit family history through a different lens,especially their parents’ marriage,as more secrets surface.
Bening is terrific as a woman grappling with issues that come for us all later in life,although Joy is presumably allowed more nuance on the page than here. And while the twist may not be terribly surprising,Apples Never Fall is an engaging character-driven drama,if not a shocking thriller.
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