“ Lady in the Lake ” is a study in contrasts. It begins with an appropriately ominous cold open of a corpse being thrown into dark, cold waters outside of Baltimore while the victim herself ( Moses Ingram ) narrates that a collision of worlds is coming between her and the Jewish housewife ( Natalie Portman ) who will find her body. Already, that’s a lot.
But coming back from the credits, there’s then a seedy, slightly comic spectacle of a hungover guy in a silver beanie and gigantic cardboard mailbox costume (the ‘60s sure seem weird?) pissing in an alley before jogging back out onto the street and into formation as part of a Christmas Day parade. Then there’s director Alma Har’el’s camera, weaving and dancing its way through the crowded chaos, never quite positioning us in one place or one perspective. Tonally and visually, Har’el continually keeps the audience off-balance.
Har’el told IndieWire that this Apple TV+ show was a way different experience in scope and ambition to her previous film and music video work (one wild episode of “Dave” notwithstanding), but that she was inspired to do something that combined the rich detail and precision of a period piece, the magnetic pull that True Crime has (apparently in all times and places), as well as something that’s a little bit dreamy and surreal. Connecting all those pieces had to happen through controlling the rhythm of the edit and spotlighting the shifts in intensity of the actors’ performances..