‘Losing Alice’ Review: An Erotic Thriller About the Creative Process Is Your Next TV Obsession

All creatives have shared the same impulse at one point or another: What if you made a piece of art about the creative process itself? Often these projects are pretentious at best, deeply egotistical at worst. Yet Apple TV+‘s new drama from Sigal Avin walks that precarious line perfectly. Losing Alice captures the bliss, obsession, and covert narcissism baked into the creative process and transforms it into a story about one woman’s collapsing morals.

On a surface level, Losing Alice is a series about female obsession. When we first meet Alice (Ayelet Zurer) she’s a director in denial about her own decline. She used to be known for daring films that were unafraid to chronicle the complexities and mess of real life. But at 48-years-old she has traded that life in for quality time with her two young children and consistent commercial projects. In Losing Alice‘s first episodes both Alice and her actor husband David (Gal Toren) spend a great deal of time talking about her job. She’s always struggling to carve out time to write her next screenplay, always frowning over where she is in her career. Only when we see her taking that much-discussed time, nothing happens. As much as Alice talks about her great future, much of it is only words.

At least, that’s the case until the 24-year-old Sophie (Lihi Kornowski) enters her life. Immediately it’s clear that Sophie is everything Alice once was but is no longer. She has a daring, raw script that’s making waves in the Israeli film industry, and she goes after life with a fearlessness we almost exclusively see through Alice’s envious eyes. Even the way she meets Alice mirrors her addicting and chaotic energy. In the show’s first episode the pair meet on a train after Sophie recognizes her directorial idol. Seconds after heaping praise onto Alice, Sophie reveals that she actually re-enacted a sex scene from one of Alice’s films in her own life. That’s how Sophie comes across: intense, sexy, and mischievously alluring.

Most of the miniseries follows their bizarre, obsessive dance. As Sophie gushes over Alice’s directorial brilliance, Alice finds the wild muse she lost in Sophie. Neither woman is good for the other. Vain attempts to keep Alice interested push Sophie to act on her craziest impulses. As Alice comes to know Sophie better, she starts to become more like the 24-year-old. Taboos like missing the kids’ bedtimes or not flirting outside her marriage begin to disappear. And yet these two women are so enraptured with one another they’re powerless to stop this self-destructive cycle.

Yet in the middle of this destruction there’s also a reclamation. Throughout Alice’s tumultuous encounters with Sophie, bits and pieces of her return. It’s not uncommon for Losing Alice to break away from its main narrative to show gorgeously shot scenes that revolve around unknown people committing shocking acts. During these moments, Alice is imagining what Sophie’s script could be, what her art could be if she rejected her predictable and stable life for something and someone wild.

These moments are jarring, yes. But these asides are also thrilling, hitting the series like a lightening bolt and leaving both Alice and the audience dazed. There’s a deep eroticism to Alice’s reconnection to her bolder creative side. Each one is so sudden, so beautiful, so emotionally devastating, they will tempt you to pause the series and reach for a cigarette (even if you don’t smoke). In some ways these moments are even more erotic than Losing Alice’s many sex scenes — a feat in and of itself.

Yet that characterization is also the point. Diving into a project and slowly seeing it come to life is a thrill more electric and euphoric than almost any other in the world. It’s also one that comes with sacrifice. Every moment nurturing your dream project is one you could be spending with loved ones. Every conversation and thought not about the work is stealing time away from the artistic soul. It’s a balancing act every creative intimately understands. Losing Alice is simply a story about one woman who fails that tightrope walk spectacularly.

For anyone who loves a good story about two equals ripping each other to shreds, Losing Alice has that in spades. Both Zurer and Kornowski give stunning performances, twisting their relationship from that of best friends to mortal enemies in a single look. If psychological thrillers are more your speed, the miniseries delivers on that front as well. Alice often becomes so wrapped up in her own fantasy world it’s nearly impossible to determine what the truth may be. Yet the saga that Losing Alice perfects is truly an internal one. This miniseries captures the war between art and life in a way that’s equally self-deprecating and immediately identifiable.

Losing Alice premieres on Apple TV+ Friday, January 22 at 3/2c a.m.

Watch Losing Alice on Apple TV+