THE PRICE OF PRIVILEGE

Prime Video's We Were Liars is a visually seductive mystery-drama about a teenager's amnesia and her family's hidden secrets on a private island

- STORY: TATAT BUNNAG

In We Were Liars, Prime Video's new YA mystery-drama based on E. Lockhart's bestselling novel, 17-year-old Cadence Sinclair (Emily Alyn Lind) returns to her family's private island after suffering a traumatic brain injury the previous summer. The incident has left her with no memory of what happened and as she searches for answers, she finds herself surrounded by layers of silence, secrets and selective memory from those closest to her — including her childhood besties, known as “The Liars”, and her first love.

Set on the fictional Beechwood Island, just off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, We Were Liars is visually seductive, filled with the kind of sweeping coastline shots, glowing golden-hour skies and sprawling estates designed to draw viewers into a world of generational wealth and understated privilege. But underneath the glamorous façade lies a family deeply fractured by ambition, resentment and emotional manipulation. Unfortunately, for all its visual appeal and hints at deeper themes, the series doesn’t quite hold up under closer scrutiny.

This show will likely appeal to audiences still smitten with the idea of rich people spending long summers in beautiful places — think Big Little Lies or The Summer I Turned Pretty — but as a mystery thriller, it struggles to land its emotional and narrative punches. The plot relies heavily on the overused trope of amnesia as a way to build suspense, and while it’s initially intriguing, the structure soon becomes repetitive. We jump between two timelines — Cadence at 16, when the “incident” occurred, and Cadence at 17, when she returns to Beechwood — but the back-and-forth begins to feel like a narrative gimmick rather than a meaningful tool of storytelling.

For all intents and purposes,