Every night this week, I watched one episode of Netflix’s latest limited mini-series, Behind Her Eyes. The adaptation’s arrival on Netflix caught me entirely by surprise, despite hearing years earlier, shortly after reading the novel, that an adaptation was already in development.
Behind Her Eyes follows Louise, a single mother who meets her charismatic new boss at work, David. Later becoming entangled in a bizarre love triangle with Adele – David’s wife – events transpire which lead Louise into a nightmarish world of dreams, night terrors, and astral projection.
Created for television by Steve Lightfoot and Left Bank Pictures, the six-part series was adapted from Sarah Pinborough’s novel of the same name from 2017. Now, critical opinion has been mixed, but I always strive to avoid reviews, particularly in the case of Behind Her Eyes, a novel I’d read within two weeks. I was left unsettled as I turned the final page, and absorbed the last words, a feeling rarely replicated after indulging in a small-screen adaptation.
The execution across six episodes was sharp and faithful to the source material, while the performances (Simona Brown and Eve Hewson particularly) were unsettling and faultless. Every beat to the story’s elaborate premise has been inserted with precise and careful consideration; many of the smaller details you’ll be sure to miss until a second viewing later.
Despite the challenge of condensing more than three hundred pages into six one-hour episodes, it’s a challenge the entire writing team conquered flawlessly. In much the same way Sarah Pinborough’s novel haunted me long after finishing it two years ago, its small-screen adaptation will be hard to forget.
All six episodes of Behind Her Eyes are available to stream now on Netflix.
Have you checked out Behind Her Eyes on Netflix? What did you think of this divisive adaptation? Let us know!