It's fitting that the first time Maddie Schwartz and Cleo Johnson, the two women at the center of the stylish new murder mystery "Lady in the Lake," lay eyes on each other, it's through a department-store display window—that engine of female desire. Maddie (Natalie Portman), a Baltimore housewife, quickly makes up her mind to buy the yellow dress modelled by Cleo (Moses Ingram), one of the store's living mannequins. Cleo's attention is caught by the rivulet of blood on Maddie's mustard-colored skirt suit. The year is 1966, and both will soon be on their way to political gatherings—Maddie to a fund-raiser for a Jewish civil-liberties group, Cleo to a rally for Marylands first Black woman state senator—though nothing as nebulous as social change can fulfill either woman's long-stifled aspirations. In a matter of days, Maddie will leave her husband (Brett Gelman) and her teen-age son, Seth (Noah Jupe), to pursue a career in journalism, and Cleo will dip her toe into a criminal underworld that quickly pulls her underwater. Afterward, in a voice-over, she expresses her resentment at having been made a supporting character in Maddie's second act: "Your writing dreams ruined your life. Now you want those same dreams to rewrite it. But why did you need to drag my dead body into it?"
Denne historien er fra August 12, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra August 12, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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MIRROR IMAGES
‘A Different Man” and The Substance.”
THE FOOTBALL BRO
Pat McAfee brings a casual new style to ESPN.
OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY
Proximity to wealth proves perilous in Rumaan Alam’ novel Entitlement.”
EYES WIDE SHUT
How Monet shared a private world.
WITH THE MOSTEST
The very rich hours of Pamela Harriman.
HUGO HAMILTON AUTOBAHN
On the Autobahn outside Frankfurt. November. The fields were covered in a thin sheet of snow.
TRY IT ON
How Law Roach reimagined red-carpet style.
SORRY I'M NOT YOUR CLOWN TODAY
Bowen Yang's trip to Oz, by way of conversion therapy and S..N.L.”
SNIFF TEST
A maverick perfumer tries to make his mark on a storied fashion house.
LET'S HAVE A LONG TALK ABOUT OUR RELATIONSHIP JUST BEFORE BED!
Babe, are you nodding off? I know we’re both exhausted after a long day, a dinner party at which you made a three-word comment that left me feeling like you don’t know me at all, and the subsequent ninety-minute fight that culminated in a tentative truce.
