It’s hard to satirise the super-rich. Not that we don’t enjoy trying. The most recent attempt – The Perfect Couple, a murder mystery starring Nicole Kidman set around a mansion in Nantucket, has been at the UK’s top spot on Netflix since it came out last week. The White Lotus is to return for a third season; Glass Onion, Triangle of Sadness, The Undoing and Big Little Lies were all runaway hits.
These satires are curious things, though, all of the same pattern. They don’t focus much, for example, on where the money has come from. Instead, they work hard to show us that the 1% are, in fact, flawed: they are lazy, insecure, have affairs, are unpleasant to staff and are – as in other sectors of society – even capable of crime.
