'Lady in the Lake' review: Natalie Portman stars in murky drama

WHAT IT'S ABOUT In 1966 Baltimore, Maddie Schwartz (Jericho-raised Natalie Portman, in her first TV role) is a prominent member of the city's Reform Jewish community, and Cleo Sherwood (Moses Ingram, “Obi-Wan Kenobi'') is a Black woman struggling to take care of her family. Their worlds converge after Cleo disappears and Maddie becomes a newspaper reporter who investigates what happened to her. Adapted from Laura Lippman's 2019 mystery novel of the same name, this is loosely based on two real-life murders: Shirley Lee Wigeon Parker, a 35-year-old barmaid at a local club, whose body was found in a lake fountain on June 2, 1969, and 11-year-old Esther Lebowitz, who was killed in the basement of an aquarium store a few months later.

Oscar winner Portman recently told "Today" she chose this project because there's a "primal female motivation to be the one to tell our own story, to write your own destiny, to not be subject to the constraints put upon you by society." That pretty much sums up "Lady in the Lake" as well: Two women, different destinies, drawn to each other to fulfill those.

MY SAY TV's been running on fumes this summer with a couple of exceptions. "The Bear" is an obvious one but could Apple TV + — or could this — be the other? Along with "Lady," there are two other major newcomers from the service this month: "Sunny," which dropped July 10 and "Time Bandits" (July 24). Each also has incandescent leads (Rashida Jones, Lisa Kudrow, respectively) and interesting backstories. "Lady" effectively one-ups both with a rising-star director, Israeli-born Alma Har'el, who has assembled a huge, mostly Black cast and filmed this seven-parter in a Charm City lavished with period details.

Lippman — a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun — based her novel on those two long-ago crimes then sought meaning in the horror by doing what good reporters always do. Could they be related in some difficult-to-define way that braided together the city's culture, institutions and history?

She needed a protagonist to do the asking (Maddie) and another to counterbalance her and be the object of those questions (Cleo). The former's a desperate housewife who sheds the constraints of upper-middle-class Jewish life in Baltimore circa 1966, the latter an impoverished Black woman who runs numbers for a local syndicate to feed her kids and (for that matter) herself.

Because this is Baltimore and Lippman — who is married to David Simon — comparisons to "The Wire'' are reasonable, maybe inevitable, also quickly dispelled. Unlike Simon or the classic series he created, Har'el doesn't see the irony in the contrast of these disparate lives but she certainly sees the visual possibilities, notably a color palette that's various shades of "noir," and a soundtrack to match. She's enraptured by atmospherics, moods and heighted reality — the moodier and more heightened the better. For example, Maddie's clue-revealing fever dream sequences are 100-proof camp and also unexpectedly — or unintentionally — the better part of "Lady."

But the question that never seems to occur to either Har'el, Portman or Maddie is the most important of all: Who exactly is Maddie Schwartz, nee Morgenstern? As always, Portman looks fabulous on-screen but her hero is a sartorially resplendent cipher. She wants to put distance between herself and her family — even more poorly sketched than she is — then gets into journalism for reasons that never quite sync up or come into focus. As a character, Cleo's marginally better but falls into the same trap — not enough backstory and set against a too-hastily sketched foreground.

As a viewer, you end up with a show that looks great, but ultimately trips up on the mechanics of basic storytelling — a shame because you do sense that Maddie and Cleo, whoever they are, deserve better.

BOTTOM LINE OK melodrama that's padded and overwrought.