Fake Is the Scammer-Thriller Film To Watch This Month
What is it about TV shows about scammers that we can’t get enough of? Is it the audacious deceit? The psychology of the scammer? Or the fear that we might one day be a victim? It may be all three, but whatever it is, it’s fueled documentaries like The Tinder Swindler and dramas like Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar.
Fake, an eight-part drama series coming to ITVX, is the latest entry into this specific crime niche, and follows a woman who becomes concerned that her boyfriend is not who she believed he was. Here’s all you need to know:
What is Fake about?
Coincidentally, much like Apple Cider Vinegar, Fake is an Australian drama set in Oz and starring actress Asher Keddie (Nine Perfect Strangers) as Bridie Bell. We meet Bridie as she’s looking for a long-term relationship on a dating app, and her luck is in when she matches with Joe, played by David Wenham (The Lord of the Rings). Joe seems to be an all-around perfect match; he’s a successful farmer, and when they meet, she finds herself irresistibly attracted to him. Everything seems to be going dreamily as their relationship blossoms, but a sneaking reality begins to set in for Bridie. As things get more and more intense between them, she begins to wonder if in fact she knows who Joe really is.
Joe undeniably has a magnetic pull on Bridie, but the doubts in her mind start to turn into serious worries, and Fake begins to descend into a real psychological thriller. The series first debuted over in Australia last year on Paramount+, and is based on the memoir of the same name by Stephanie Wood, who wrote about her real-life experiences as a journalist who happened to fall in love with a scammer online. While of course, the scam and the scammer are a big part of what makes Fake and the original memoir so compelling, at the very core is the question of why we deny our instincts, even when they’re crying out to tell us that something feels very wrong. It makes for thrilling viewing.
What else do we know?
Fake became hugely popular on its debut in its home country, and also stars Nicholas Brown (Clerks III), Heather Mitchell (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) and Louisa Mignone (The Twelve). It’s available to stream in the UK on ITVX and ITV1.
