Available on Netflix, Don’t Get Away is a British miniseries adapted from the eponymous novel by Harlan Coben. Mysteries, disappearances, pretenses… the recipe is always the same but remains effective.
What is it about ?
Britain. Megan is a working woman while raising her three children. Ray was a promising photographer but today he’s stuck in a food job courting young people aspiring to fame. Broome, on the other hand, is a detective unable to leave behind an unresolved case of disappearance. Soon, a new affair will stir up the past and impact the existence of Megan, Ray and Broome …
Don’t Go Away, a series created by Harlan Coben starring Cush Jumbo, James Nesbitt, Richard Armitage, Eddie Izzard … Available on Netflix
Pure Coben
Don’t Go Far is Harlan Coben’s latest baby to land on Netflix, and we’re already betting on its success. This crime drama tells the story of Megan (Cush Jumbo), a woman with three children, a loving husband and a mysterious past. When old secrets and people from her past resurface, she does everything to keep it all under the rug.
In short, classic entertainment. But the real challenge of this series is to find a way to avoid all the clichés. There are as many in this adaptation of Harlan Coben as there are characters. “I can feel it in my piss!“screams a father in disarray whose son has disappeared.”Bags. Car. Can you help me ?says Megan, the typical overwhelmed mom.
Vishal Sharma / Netflix
“No reduction for the cops“growls the bouncer of a strip club with a scowl. Shall we continue? The score of Do not move away is carefully marked… A little too much. And we don’t have to wait more than ten minutes to learn that Megan is hiding a big secret.
Back home the evening of her bachelorette party – she is about to marry the father of her children with whom she has been in a relationship for 16 years – she finds an envelope placed in front of a bottle of champagne with the first name Cassie written on it. And seen his face, it is not the first name of the neighbor.
Neither one nor two, we quickly understand that Megan has changed her life and buried her past as a stripper to which the series makes many references to flashbacks showing Cassie / Megan wearing a blonde wig …
James Stack / Netflix
There are a lot of subplots going on, all tangled up. There is a photographer (Richard Armitage) who appears to have a connection to Megan and the missing man. There’s a weathered-faced villain, Stewart Green (Rod Hunt), who reappears after being missing for 17 years. James Nesbitt and Jo Joyner are partners in the disappearance investigation, and formerly married.
Eddie Izzard also appears at one point as a drug addict addicted to heroin, but who is discovered as a lawyer with a big heart flying to the rescue of strippers and prostitutes.
Everything is just clichés and quite implausible. What is even more, improbable, is that we get caught up in the game. Cush Jumbo from The Good Fight, James Nesbitt from The Missing, Richard Armitage (The Stranger) and the incomparable Eddie Izzard are all enough solid and good so that we want to be interested at least a little in their fate …