It is not a stretch to say that Asher Keddie and David Wenham are among Australia’s most beloved actors. Nina Proudman and Diver Dan? Iconic, in the most warm, charming way. This is definitely not that.
Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion. Fake, in which Keddie plays Birdie, a journalist being wooed by Wenham’s successful grazier Joe, is a brilliantly-acted, deeply unsettling, thoroughly uncomfortable watch. The gripping eight-part drama about a love scam, inspired by Stephanie Wood’s 2021 memoir of the same name, starts with Birdie matching with Joe on an online dating app.
On their first date, her gut says no. But despite her reservations, at the behest of friends and family — because God forbid a woman, especially of a certain age, be single — she continues to see him. As Birdie falls for Joe’s charms and the relationship intensifies, so the log line goes, “Birdie is torn between Joe’s magnetic pull and the instinct that her boyfriend isn’t all he has led her to believe”.
Both the leads are brilliant — they’re almost too good, in that I had my heart in my mouth for every moment of the two episodes I watched. Watching Keddie’s Birdie, an accomplished writer yet still so vulnerable, get so swept away that she overrides her every instinct and pushes aside every red flag is heartbreaking. The desperation transforming to relief on her face, as she almost calls Joe out numerous times but is always given j.