# Lady in the Lake (2024)

> A journalist and a Black woman in 1966 Baltimore are pulled into a fatal collision course after a young girl vanishes on Thanksgiving.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/100150

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 7
- Episode runtime: 53 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, crime, mystery
- Created by: Alma Har'el
- Network: Apple TV
- Cast: Natalie Portman, Moses Ingram, Y'lan Noel, Brett Gelman, Byron Bowers, Noah Jupe, Josiah Cross, Mikey Madison
- TMDB rating: 6.0/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14022668/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: brooding, claustrophobic, wary, morally compromised, tense

## What critics say

Audience reception is negative, with viewers finding the mystery engaging in parts but the execution uneven.

## Synopsis

Lady in the Lake (2024) is a United States miniseries created by Alma Har'el for Apple TV, a period crime mystery set in 1960s Baltimore. Natalie Portman plays Maddie Schwartz, a Jewish journalist whose search for the truth runs headlong into Moses Ingram as Cleo Johnson, a Black woman whose own life is tangled with the same city. Y'lan Noel, Brett Gelman, and Noah Jupe fill out a supporting cast of hustlers, operators, and bystanders caught in the orbit of a missing young girl's case. Across seven episodes of roughly fifty-three minutes each, the story unfolds as a single continuing investigation, its engine the two women's competing pursuits of answers in a city where gambling money and political influence bend every lead. The series moves through holiday-season streets, smoky back rooms, and newsroom offices, building a mood that is wary, morally compromised, and quietly furious about who gets believed and who gets erased. Its tone is brooding and claustrophobic, with the period detail and racial and gendered friction shaping every conversation. Fans of Mad Men, Chinatown, and Mare of Easttown will find resonance in its noir-tinged atmosphere, its female leads, and its close attention to a mid-century American city's rot.

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