Netflix Has Another Harlan Coben Hit With ‘Run Away’
It’s become a tradition for Netflix to debut a new limited series based on a Harlan Coben novel at the beginning of January, and these annual shows from producer Danny Brocklehurst have proven to be reliable hits for several years now — along with nearly every other Coben-based series on Netflix. Viewers know exactly what to expect from the latest Coben/Brocklehurst collaboration, and that applies to this year’s release, Run Away, which has been lodged in the Netflix TV top 10 chart since its release on January 1. Coben and Brocklehurst don’t mess with the formula for this new series, but that’s not a bad thing. Run Away is just as addictive as previous Coben adaptations, with an appealing ensemble of shady characters hiding dark secrets.
As is often the case in Coben series, the story begins with the unexpected reappearance of someone from the past, under mysterious circumstances. Finance executive Simon Greene (James Nesbitt) spots his teenage daughter Paige (Ellie de Lange) busking in a park, after she’s been missing for six months. Paige is bruised and beaten, and she runs away when Simon confronts her. As he chases her, he’s blocked by her violent drug-addict boyfriend Aaron Corval (Thomas Flynn), and Simon’s furious beatdown of Aaron becomes a viral video. That’s the catalyst for Simon’s involvement in a wide-ranging conspiracy, as he searches for Paige and finds himself the target of a murder investigation after Aaron turns up dead.
After a few shorter recent Coben series, Run Away extends to eight episodes, and Coben and Brocklehurst put together a large collection of characters and subplots to keep the story moving, even when Simon’s search for Paige is going in circles. Nesbitt’s gravelly intensity can be a bit one-note, and he recalls Michael C. Hall’s character in the 2018 Coben/Brocklehurst series Safe, who also plunged into a dangerous underworld while trying to locate his missing teenage daughter. Fortunately, there are plenty of other characters to focus on, including in a couple of plot threads that initially seem unconnected to Paige’s disappearance.
Any Coben fan knows that those storylines will all converge, so that the missing-persons case that private detective Elena Ravenscroft (Ruth Jones) is pursuing will tie in with Simon’s missing-persons investigation, and the pair of enigmatic assassins (Maeve Courtier-Lilley and Jon Pointing) systematically taking out targets will eventually get to someone close to Simon.
Elena is the highlight of the series, an unassuming middle-aged woman who is unafraid to stride into perilous situations in order to find out the truth. All of these Coben Netflix series are based on standalone novels, but it’s easy to imagine Elena as the main character of an ongoing series, taking on various clients with the help of her tech guru Lou (Annette Badland), who also happens to be her elderly mother-in-law. One character even compares her to Miss Marple.
Unfortunately, Elena gets caught up in the increasingly sinister criminal agenda along with everyone else, and she’s just one cog in the typically convoluted story. At least she brings a welcome bit of humor to the sometimes humorless Coben canon, as does Simon’s glamorous high-powered lawyer, who makes a few disappointingly brief appearances, answering his calls with a curt “What have you done now?” For the most part, the female characters carry Run Away, and the show’s biggest injustice is casting Minnie Driver as Simon’s wife and Paige’s mother, only to sideline her character in a coma for the majority of the series. Driver is by far the biggest name in the show, and she appears primarily in occasional flashbacks.
Thankfully, there are strong performances elsewhere, including from comedy veterans Jones and Amy Gledhill (as one of the police detectives investigating Aaron’s murder) adding some lightness to their serious roles. It’s sometimes frustrating when ominous cliffhangers turn out to be nothing, or seemingly important plot points just end up as loose ends. But that’s nothing new for Coben shows, either, and viewers will likely to be too hooked on the juicy twists and shocking betrayals to worry about the small parts that don’t add up. In other words, Run Away is another Coben success story.
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Josh Bell is a freelance writer and movie/TV critic based in Las Vegas. He has written about movies, TV, and pop culture for the Boston Globe, Vulture, Tom’s Guide, Inverse, Crooked Marquee, and more. With comedian Jason Harris, he co-hosts the podcast Awesome Movie Year.