Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Wanderlust’ On Netflix, Where A Couple Explores Their Sex Lives … With Other People

It’s been awhile since Toni Collette has had a TV series, but she always elevates any show she’s in. In her new series, Wanderlust, she plays a woman who starts to reconsider what she wants in life, especially sexually, since being hurt in a biking accident. Read on to find out whether the show around Collette is worth watching…

WANDERLUST: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A couple facing each other in the bedroom. The woman gingerly gives her crutch to the man to put down, and they gingerly come together to have sex.

The Gist: Joy Richards (Toni Collette) has been recovering from an accident where she was hit by a car while she was biking through her neighborhood, and this is the first time she and her husband Alan (Steven Mackintosh) have attempted sex. It’s uncomfortable, to say the least. Joy uses the pain as an excuse, but Alan isn’t buying it, since it seems like their sex life was on the decline even before Joy got hurt.

Joy is a therapist, who sees awkward couples looking for help and individuals who talk about their intriguing dreams. Of course, she helps them navigate their lives because her clients know nothing about her personal life. Alan is the head of the English department at a prestigious prep school, where a young teacher named Clare Pascal (Zawe Ashton) comes to him after she catches their colleague (and Alan and Joy’s neighbor) Neil Bellows (Jeremy Swift) masturbating. Neil is in desperate straits, because he and his wife Rita (Anastasia Hille) just can’t get revive their sex lives, either.

Both Mannings stray at the same time; Alan has stoned sex with Clare, and Joy does some mutual “hand stuff” with a man from her hydrotherapy class named Marvin (William Ash). When they tell each other, they realize that they don’t want to have sex with each other — or at least Joy doesn’t want to have sex with Alan — but want to stay together. That’s when Joy has an epiphany — sex with other people!

Our Take: Wanderlust is created and written by Nick Payne of The Crown. It aired on BBC One in September, but Netflix has it in the rest of the world. It’s got a very British sensibility, though; the Richards live in an upper-middle class suburb consisting of townhouses that are close to each other, the two of them never talk about their actual feelings to each other, especially Alan, and everything is buttoned up.

This show helps loosen those buttons a bit, showing how longtime couples navigate, well, being longtime couples. The decline of passion for each other, the desire to experience other people, and the whole idea that humans should be monogamous. It’s an intriguing subject, especially because it’s being treated maturely and not salaciously. The Mannings want to explore, but want to stay together. The Bellowses, on the other hand, have split up over their sexual difficulties, mostly because Rita wants to explore. What’s interesting is how awkward she is around Joy and Alan’s 18-year-old daughter Naomi (Emma D’Arcy), especially when Naomi compliments her hair.

There’s also a side plot where Naomi’s high-school age brother Tom (Emma D’Arcy) shoots high and tries to ask out a Jonathan Franzen-loving classmate who is way out of his league; we’re not sure where it’ll go, but given the theme of the series, we have some ideas of where it might lead.

Collette and Mackintosh are great as two people struggling to figure out their own desires and how that brushes up against their lives together, but this show may be carried by its supporting cast, one of which we’ll discuss below in the Sleeper Star section.

Sex and Skin: Well, as we wrote at the top of this post, the sex and skin starts in the first scene, so it pretty much establishes the tone in that regard right away.

Parting Shot: Shots of Joy and Alan’s faces, as they discuss their desire to be with Clare and Marvin, respectively, again. The last shot is Joy saying, “So why don’t we?”

Sleeper Star: Zawe Ashton as Clare has a funny, sexy presence in the first episode, especially when she’s describing her ex’s very public proposal that ended up breaking them up. But the most intriguing is Royce Pierreson as Jason Hales, a patient of Joy’s who describes the only dream he has, when an intruder comes into his apartment and almost strangles him. Joy’s interest as he describes the dream makes us wonder if there’s going to be an ethical violation in her future.

Most Pilot-y Line: Rita is so nervous around Naomi that, when bringing homemade cannolis to Joy, she awkwardly utters the famous line from The Godfather: “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. It’ll be interesting to see how the Mannings can figure out how to be with other people and stay a couple. Some of the side stories are intriguing enough to keep an eye on, as well.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch Wanderlust on Netflix