The Hollywood Reporter reviews ‘Apples Never Fall’
Peacock’s Apples Never Fall is practically brimming over with secrets. The biggest one, sitting right in the center, is the question of what really happened to Joy Delaney (Annette Bening), a recently retired tennis coach whose disappearance sends her family into a tailspin. The search for that truth uncovers deeper ones still, in the process unearthing hatchets that had seemed buried and reopening wounds that had appeared healed. In time, we’ll examine every crack laying just beneath the Delaneys’ picture-perfect façade, from seemingly every angle.
Yet once all the dirt has been dug up, it’s difficult not to feel a twinge of disappointment at how shallow this world still seems. Apples Never Fall has plenty to recommend it, including some fine performances and a shrewd grasp of the Delaney clan’s complicated dynamics. But in the absence of a strong perspective or a compelling backdrop, Melanie Marnich’s adaptation of the novel by Liane Moriarty (Big Little Lies) struggles to pop onscreen.
