In All Her Fault, everything immediately falls apart for working mother Marissa Irvine, played with barely composed chaos by Sarah Snook.
The thriller miniseries from Peacock has drawn major attention since its debut earlier this November, amassing 33.6 million hours watched in its first week in the United States alone. In the Philippines, All Her Fault currently ranks as the Top 4th series on HBO Max, besting shows like Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy and I Love LA. This may be in part due to the series’ talented ensemble cast being led by Snook, fresh off her Emmy-winning tenure on Succession as Shiv Roy.
Created by Megan Gallagher, All Her Fault opens with Marissa knocking on a door to pick up her five-year-old son, Milo (Duke McCloud), from a playdate. Unfortunately for Marissa, there was no playdate; instead, Milo has been kidnapped, and all she can do is wait for the ransom call. Her family, try as they might, are of no help: her husband Peter (Jake Lacy, of White Lotus douchebag fame) demands to take charge of the situation, and her siblings-in-law Brian (Daniel Monks) and Lia (Abby Elliott) have their own family drama spiraling out of control. On top of all this, the news outlets and reporters are out for blood, hoping to pin the blame for Milo’s disappearance on Marissa.
The only true respite Marissa has throughout this chaotic eight-episode miniseries is her newfound friend Jenny Kraminski, brought to life by Dakota Fanning. Jenny, although also a mother juggling a career and home life, becomes one of Marissa’s only poles of support as she navigates the damning public eye and the seemingly endless search for her son.
“I was worried that [Jenny and Marissa’s relationship] might fall into the trope of women being at each other’s throats,” Fanning said during an official press conference, “but I was really happy that their relationship stayed genuine throughout the series. It built into a real friendship with them supporting each other, which felt like a more unexpected route for these characters.”
Fanning, an actress since childhood and best known for her dramatic work in projects such as I Am Sam, The Runaways, and The First Lady, is no stranger to material that tests her vulnerability onscreen. But in All Her Fault, Fanning saw that the role demanded an honest, messy portrayal of womanhood. “It was an opportunity to realistically portray what it can feel like to be a woman nowadays,” said Fanning. “It feels like you’re never getting it right, even when you’re doing your best, and you don’t know how to manage it all. [You’re] trying to be a good person, friend, worker, mom, wife, student… [but] it feels like you’re being judged from all angles all the time.”
In All Her Fault, judgement abounds as the abduction’s main players begin to assign blame and unearth family secrets that would have been better left untouched. Because of this, the series feels less like a conventional thriller and more like a character-driven drama that weighs as heavy as the mystery itself. “I think it’s interesting that there’s this mystery with [Milo’s] disappearance, but then there’s also the mystery within the family that starts to unravel,” said Fanning. “There are two types of thrillers going on simultaneously and both have big stakes.”
All Her Fault is currently screening in the Philippines on HBO Max.
