BRISTOL, England — The opening shot of the new HBO Max limited series “The Girl Before” planes over the silvery, slatted-timber facade of a house, then moves into its gorgeously minimal interior. Tall cathedral windows let in muted light; a stone table and wooden chairs stand like art objects framed by smooth concrete and glass walls.“I really wanted it to sometimes feel calm and safe, a sanctuary, and sometimes like a prison,” said the show’s production designer, Jon Henson, as he walked visitors around the futuristic home that is the setting for much of the four-part show, which premieres on Thursday and was adapted by JP Delaney from his 2017 novel of the same name.Henson, who said he had been influenced by the Japanese architecture studio Gosize and by the Belgian architect Vincent Van Duysen, opened one of the kitchen drawers. “We even customized these so that each knife and implement has its own compartment,” he said.The Girl Before Season 1 Download
The plot of “The Girl Before” centers on a house in the affluent London suburb of Hampstead designed by the exacting architect Edward Monkford. Played by David Oyelowo with smooth, contained charm, Edward rents the house at 1 Folgate Street for a strangely affordable rate to a select few tenants who agree to abide by his many, many rules (“over 200” an estate agent explains). Among them: No pets, no children, no mess, no possessions. Also, the occupants must submit to random interrogations from the house’s Big Brother operating system, Housekeeper, which monitors their daily behavior.“The real star of the show is 1 Folgate Street!” said Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who plays Jane, a P.R. executive taking refuge in the monastic environment after losing a child in a stillbirth. “She is looking for a sanctuary to erase that memory,” Mbatha-Raw said in a video interview. “It’s a cleansing space for her to recalibrate her sense of self.”