Review: Annette Bening and Sam Neill offer a master class in acting in 'Apples Never Fall'

Fresh from her fifth Oscar nomination (still no wins, darn it) as champion swimmer Diana Nyad in "Nyad," Annette Bening sets her sights on the Outstanding Lead Actress Emmy as the family matriarch in "Apples Never Fall," the seven-part, seven-hour limited series now streaming on Peacock in which her star shine is the chief reason to watch.

Based on the novel by Australian author Liane Moriarty, whose 2021 bestseller "Big Little Lies" inspired an Emmy bonanza for the HBO version starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, "Apples Never Fall" is dished out by experts, including showrunner Melanie Marnich. Still, at this apple's core is a soap opera that can be trusted only to do the trite thing.

There's nothing wrong with extravagant escapism, especially with this classy cast, just don't expect it to raise the bar the way "Big Little Lies" did.

No excuses need to be made for Bening. She is sublime in every detail as Joy Delaney, a recently retired tennis coach with four adult children, all of whom have failed to make it as tennis pros. Joy and her husband Stan (the reliably superb Sam Neill) have recently sold their tennis academy, leaving this workaholic couple adrift among the wealthy denizens of Florida's Palm Beach, home to Mar-a-Lago and a certain presidential hopeful.

Watching the rich enjoying their privileges is a Moriarty specialty, brimming over with sex, lies, betrayals, and, this time, a possible murder. No sooner do we see Joy biking near her home than the camera cuts to the bike on the ground with blood on its wheels and no sign of Joy.

Who done it? In flashbacks, we see that empty-nesters Joy and Stan had recently taken in Savannah (Georgia Flood), a too-good-to-true boarder who treats them better and with more empathy than their own selfish brood.

It isn't long, however, till everyone's suspicions fall on dear old Dad, whose angry resentments toward his wife heated up when she was caught having an affair. And what role if any did Joy have in destroying Stan's relationship with Harry Haddad (Giles Matthey), the tennis student who fired Stan just after he hit the big time?

In short, the Delaneys are far from the picture-perfect couple they present to the world. And their children are equal screwups. We see that the apples never fall far from the tree as each of the four (two boys, two girls) is given one full episode to show what's rotting underneath.

Jake Lacy excels as Troy, the son who's long hated on his dad for giving his more promising pupil Harry all the love, attention and loyalty Troy craved. Now a venture capitalist (Joy claims ignorance of what the term even means), Troy bails out his financially-strapped family at every turn with little credit to show for it.

With the exception of Alison Brie, who makes daughter Amy something more than a collection of failure-to-launch stereotypes, the other children— Conor Merrigan Turner as Logan, the weak son, and Essie Randles as Brooke, the lesbian daughter who finds cheating runs in the family—are conceived as cardboard and played as such.

It's the gorgeously mature and experienced Bening and Neill who rivet and reward our attention. Even when the series collapses around them—the alleged surprise ending is a botch—they offer a master class in acting that makes "Apples Never Fall" worth watching.