This glossy murder mystery, starring Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington and Kate Mara, should be better than this. But if you brace yourself for a perfectly acceptable eight hours of entertainment, you’ll have a good time

You can’t say Imperfect Women doesn’t warn you. It is clear from the very first shots – three women dancing, drunkenly but happily, laughing but not scream-laughing, as the camera whirls round their beautifully lit selves – and the first line – an earnest voiceover about “a kinship from deep in our souls” – what we’re in for. That is, an overwritten, far-fetched, glossy but derivative murder mystery – a descendant of Big Little Lies, intermarried with touches of everything else Nicole Kidman has done in the last 10 years.

Adjust your expectations accordingly and you’ll have a perfectly acceptable eight hours of entertainment. Dwell on the fact that you could well have expected better of an Apple TV production and a main cast that includes Kerry Washington, Elisabeth Moss and Kate Mara and you’ll have less of a good time. So don’t do that.

The Scandal star made history as the first Black woman to lead a TV show in 40 years. Now, she’s back in the hot seat with starry thriller Imperfect Women, and she’s determined to keep shaking up the industry

As double entendres go, to say Kerry Washington acts with teeth isn’t a bad one. There’s the literal meaning: Washington’s dramatic facial expressions have become internet canon, immortalised as various reaction gifs and as a favourite of online impressionists. But there’s also the roles themselves. The characters Washington plays have bite – they’re complex women that defy neat categorisation. Her role as Olivia Pope, the sleek political fixer in ABC’s Scandal, became a global sensation – and was the first time a Black woman led a network show in nearly 40 years.

Now Washington is back with a new project offering not just one complicated leading lady but three. Imperfect Women, Apple TV’s adaptation of Araminta Hall’s novel, brings Washington together with Elisabeth Moss and Kate Mara in a glossy murder mystery that puts female friendship – its love, loyalty, secrets and rivalry – at the heart.

Daniel Craig is joined by a sparkling array of talent including O’Connor, Glenn Close and Josh Brolin in this latest murder mystery with a religious undercurrent

Rian Johnson’s delectable new Knives Out film is a chocolate box: mouthwateringly delicious on the first layer and … well, perfectly tasty on the second. Daniel Craig returns as private detective Benoit Blanc, in a slightly more serious mode than before, with not as many droll suth’n phrases and quirky faux-naif mannerisms, but rocking a longer hairstyle and handsomely tailored three-piece suit.

Blanc arrives at a Catholic church in upstate New York to investigate the sensational murder of its presiding priest, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, a ferocious clerical alpha male played by Josh Brolin, thundering his reactionary views from the pulpit. (That “Monsignor” title can only be bestowed by the pope incidentally: presumably Benedict XVI or John Paul II, not milksop liberals like Francis or Leo XIV.) And prime suspect is the sweet-natured, thoughtful junior priest Father Jud Duplenticy, amusingly played by Josh O’Connor, who was upset by the Monsignor’s heartless attitudes and was caught on video threatening to cut him out of the church like a cancer. Atheist Blanc faces off with the young priest, a worldview culture-clash which leads to an extraordinary encounter with the Resurrection itself.