Losing Alice - Season 1

Anchored by a couple of tremendous performances, "Losing Alice" can take an evocative color palette, a well-placed camera, and a few gentle moves to unlock some genuine uncertainty and anxiety.

Director and writer Sigal Avin so belabors the point that an idle mind can stray into self-destruction that Losing Alice paradoxically has the same effect on its viewers.

An immensely compelling drama, if an overlong one, and a heroine who is, title notwithstanding, anything but lost.

The echoes here include Fatal Attraction and even The Player, but focusing the power dynamic on two women gives the building menace a fresh perspective.

An absorbing tale of obsession and jealousy that's filled with twists, turns and shifts in time.

It might have worked effectively as a 3-hour movie, but at 7 hours doled out over eight episodes, Losing Alice dribs and drabs, but mostly drabs.

Is it a psychological thriller? A dark story of obsession? A cautionary tale about the way we view creativity and female ambition? The answer is that the show is all of those things -- and more.

Despite the interesting way Alice and Sophie play off each other in the first two episodes, their interactions and the show as a whole has increasingly diminishing returns.

Ayelet Zurer absolutely hits the right notes as Alice.

As a psychological drama, Losing Alice feels too self-conscious to be enjoyable or even provocative. Its inherent eroticism feels ill-earned only because Avin seems to be prone to sanitising the brazen fixations of his protagonists.

It shocks and surprises, and but with glossy authenticity.

Apple's erotic thriller is too timid to bare it all. But lush visuals and a couple of excellent performances are its saving grace.