Netflix's 'Sara: Woman in the Shadows' Falls Apart After the First Episode

For whatever reason, global titles have been performing exceedingly well on Netflix in North America, and not just the Harlan Coben series. Scandi noirs are catching on, including the unsettling Secrets We Keep, which has had a hugely successful run in both English- and non-English-speaking countries over the last three weeks. Last week’s top film worldwide, meanwhile, was the trashy Spanish crime thriller A Widow’s Game.

These series typically don’t get much promotion in the U.S. beyond the algorithm, but they still find their way into the top ten. The latest is Sara: Woman in the Shadows, starring Teresa Saponangelo (The Hand of God) and based on the crime novel series Le indagini di Sara by Maurizio de Giovanni. Alas, this one is not very good.

Not that it doesn’t have potential. The first episode is genuinely intriguing. The series follows Sara (Saponangelo), a retired intelligence operative pulled back into the field after the death of her son. She’s a brilliant spy with a unique skill: she can read lips from a distance, useful for eavesdropping across a room or through a window.

Sara’s son is run over by a doctor who tearfully insists it was an accident. Sara remains stoic throughout the investigation, partly because they were long estranged — she’d chosen her career over raising him. Still, she feels compelled to investigate and ultimately discovers the doctor was sleeping with a woman who had also been involved with her son. Sara, in turn, runs the doctor down with her car and kills him.

That all happens in the first episode. Then the series actually begins in earnest, and that’s when it falls apart. Sara’s former partner, Teresa (Claudia Gerini), knows she killed the doctor and basically blackmails her into investigating the disappearance of her much younger boyfriend, Sergio. Sara reluctantly agrees and brings in the detective from her son’s case, Pardo (Flavio Furno). She also begins to form a bond with her son’s pregnant widow, Viola (Chiara Celotto).

The evolving relationship between Sara and her daughter-in-law— and the comic chemistry with the hapless Pardo could have been a strong foundation. Unfortunately, the case they investigate is a confusing, unengaging five-episode slog involving a convoluted political conspiracy, a puppet presidential candidate, and a nuclear energy deal. It’s a drag. It’s like watching a Bourne film with all the action stripped out, assuming you’re just here for the plot.

There are plenty of twists, but none are remotely compelling. Sara’s dead son is tangentially involved, along with her late husband, a journalist, a figure from her past, a security officer, and other people who ultimately don’t matter. I spent the final episodes just waiting for the thing to finally end, and even the resolution is anticlimactic and maddeningly forgettable.

Sara seems to want to be a kind of Italian Slow Horses or Tinker Tailor, but it’s decidedly not. That’s despite a strong performance from Saponangelo, whom other characters inexplicably describe as looking like an “old homeless woman.” (She’s barely 50 and hot, no matter how frumpy they dress her.)

I’d maybe tune in for a second season, if they swap out the amorphous conspiracy for a case that actually delivers. As it stands, the first episode promises far more than the rest of the series ever delivers.