Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Safe Home’ On Hulu, Where A Woman Who Works With Domestic Violence Victims Witnesses A Murder

Thrillers that tell their story using multiple timelines and seemingly disconnected settings often try to create drama via obscuring facts. But when there’s an underlying theme to the timelines, the storytelling method is much more effective. A new Australian thriller manages to use this method effectively, thanks to a pretty compelling lead performance.

SAFE HOME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A woman sits at a table on the balcony of her flat, trying to figure out the best way to start a speech she’s writing on her laptop.

The Gist: Phoebe Rook (Aisha Dee) is writing the speech for Grace Macdonald (Antonia Prebble), her boss and a senior partner at the law firm where she works. As her boss gives the speech, Phoebe is bantering with her colleague Julian (Thomas Cocquerel), who is also Grace’s husband. It’s her last day at work; he tells Phoebe that they’ll miss her there, but Grace coldly throws out a “good luck at your next job” and walks off.

Phoebe is next seen starting her new job at Family Violence Legal Service, a non-profit that provides free legal aid to domestic violence victims. She’s told by Leanne (Anna Piper), one of the lawyers who works there, that she needs to immediately go to the Magistrate’s Court to shadow Jenny (Mabel Li), who is working on obtaining restraining orders for clients.

During the dizzying day, where Phoebe hears a number of harrowing DV stories, Jenny tells her she needs to go to another floor to meet a “remote client,” which means someone who is sequestered from the person they’re filing against because they’re under threat. As she goes to the room, she sees an ingratiating man in a suit she assumes is a lawyer; it turns out that he’s the person the client needed to be protected from, and Phoebe mistakenly lets him into the hall outside the room she’s in.

But it turns out she wasn’t supposed to be there to begin with; she’s a communications specialist, not the junior attorney that also started that day. The CEO, Eve (Virginia Gay), brought Phoebe in is to make legislators and potential donors more aware of the work they do, as the organization’s government funding is under threat of being reduced. She tries to secure a newspaper story from a friend of her flatmate Max (Hal Cumpston), but the reporter wants dirt on the sexual misconduct that went on at her old firm in exchange.

During all of this, we see Phoebe in two other timeframes. In one timeline, she’s giving a statement to a police detective about witnessing a murder, stemming from a DV case. In another, we see her back at her old firm, secretly recording an uncomfortable conversation with senior partner Gerald Priestly (David Roberts) about his conduct with female interns.

We also see Diana Thompson (Janet Andrewartha), who is being abused by her husband Jon (Mark Mitchinson) on multiple fronts, culminating in him locking her out of their house late one night, leading her to be picked up by the police as she wandered through town all night in her pajamas. She is certainly planning something, as she steals a couple of vials of ketamine from the locker Jon uses in his horse stable.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There is a bit of a Big Little Lies vibe to Safe Home, though more on the domestic violence side of that story.

Our Take: Created by Anna Barnes (The Twelve), Safe Home is an unsparing look at domestic violence in Australia, with mechanisms that are designed to help victims filled with well-meaning, overworked and underfunded attorneys and support staff. Phoebe is the audience’s entry into that world, and Aisha Dee plays her perfectly.

Why do we say that? Because, while Phoebe doesn’t turn out to be a complete naive blank slate, given who she seems to be having an illicit relationship with, she certainly walks into the Family Violence Legal Service office as someone who wants to make a difference. Dee is ebullient as Phoebe during those first days, someone who seems to feel renewed after separating herself from the high-powered firm she just left, even if the horrible experience she had at magistrate’s court on her first day may have dinged that ebullience a bit.

But we see two other Phoebes. One is the hard-edged version at her old law firm job, feeling she can hold her own with the senior partner who is harassing interns. Her hair is pulled back and she’s as serious as a heart attack, and Dee also manages to pull off those scenes without making them inconsistent with the Phoebe we saw earlier. Then there’s the Phoebe who is being interviewed by the police detective. She has seen how DV victims don’t just snap and kill their tormentors; it’s a slow build that gets to a point where the victim has no other choice. That world-weariness is seen all over her face as she makes these statements to the detective.

Now, how this is all connected, along with the story of the abuse Diana is suffering via her husband Jon, isn’t really evident in the first episode. The storytelling didn’t feel as disjointed as one might think, though, because we know that it’s all connected through the specter of DV. Also, knowing that the miniseries is only four episodes gives us some faith that Barnes will be able to bring all of this together in a relatively short period of time.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.

Parting Shot: The detective asks Phoebe, “Why are you so sure this was murder and not just an accident?” Phoebe replies, “Because it was my fault.”

Sleeper Star: Mabel Li as Jenny Lee, mainly because her character is equally tough and empathetic, and she does not like to be bested on the daily quiz.

Most Pilot-y Line: We’re not sure what function Max has in the story other than running for city council, wearing ’80s-era sweaters and being a bit weird.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Safe Home is a very watchable thriller that is helped along by a fine lead performance by Aisha Dee as well as a storytelling method that seems to work in the context of the series’ setting.

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, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.