“Malice” is a word that in English carries a cold precision: it describes the deliberate intention to cause harm. In Portuguese, we get close with terms like “má-fé,” “perversidade,” or “ruindade premeditada,” but none fully capture the icy sting of the original. And perhaps this is why Malice, created by James Wood for Amazon Prime Video, arrives already coated in unease. It fully embraces the darkest meaning of its title and turns it into a narrative. Here, no one is safe — and no one is entirely right.

Malice is a series designed to make you uncomfortable. It echoes films like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, with its domestic tension and the danger that walks in smiling through the front door. It also borrows the slow-burn vengeance of The Count of Monte Cristo, the identity games of The Talented Mr. Ripley, and even the acidic class critique of Greed (2019), with Steve Coogan, perhaps its closest spiritual cousin. All of these works share one idea: destruction often starts small, polite, civilized, until it becomes irreversible. Malice drinks from this well — and tightens the screw.

The story: when the enemy is already inside the house

The premise is deceptively simple: a man is hired as a nanny by a wealthy family. He smiles, helps, adapts, and blends in. No one notices — or wants to notice — what hides beneath the polished neutrality of Adam Healey (Jack Whitehall). The series wastes no time suggesting something is off. But the true horror lies in the slowness: we know he’s planning something, but we don’t know when or how it will hurt.

And it does hurt.

Adam is not a loud villain. He is methodical. He observes, infiltrates, and studies the vulnerabilities of each family member — Nat’s emotional exhaustion (Carice van Houten), Jamie’s inflated ego (David Duchovny), the children’s fragility, and the social cracks around them. Little by little, everything becomes inevitable. Each person is a piece on his board. Each gesture is preparation. Nothing is accidental.

At some point, it becomes unmistakable: Adam is there to destroy.

And not destroy ideas — destroy people.

His main target?
Jamie Tanner.

Charismatic, powerful, influential — and morally questionable enough to become the perfect fuel for Adam’s vendetta. The series never tries to sanitize Jamie, and that’s essential: Malice is not about heroes and villains. It’s about damage, ego, resentment, and the dangerous pleasure revenge can offer to someone who believes they were wronged.

By the time we understand the depth of Adam’s motivations, it’s too late. He has demolished everything: reputation, marriage, finances, mental stability, and, in a sense, himself. It’s total, calculated, merciless destruction.

And the most disturbing part?
The audience knows Adam is a predator — but can’t fully root for the people he preys upon.

Behind the scenes: a production built on tension

Written, created, and executive produced by James Wood, Malice is a study in controlled storytelling. Wood wrote every episode, ensuring psychological coherence and a slow-burn rhythm that feels like watching dominoes fall in excruciating slow motion.

Directors Mike Barker and Leonora Lonsdale amplify this discomfort with visuals that are elegant but cold. Filmed in London and Paros between February and July 2024, the series uses geography as contrast: London is claustrophobic; Paros is deceptively serene — the kind of beauty that makes impending disaster feel even sharper.

Jack Whitehall: the shock of charm-free sociopathy

For anyone who knows Jack Whitehall through comedy — self-deprecation, light timing, affable personas — watching him as Adam is unnerving. He doesn’t play the charismatic villain. Adam doesn’t seduce. He doesn’t wink at the audience. There is no trauma to redeem him.

He is cold. Functional. Focused.

Whitehall commits fully to the horror of a sociopath who isn’t interested in being liked — only in achieving his goal. That restraint is what makes the performance terrifying.

David Duchovny: the charmingly cancelable man

On the other side stands David Duchovny as Jamie Tanner — a man whose confidence is as old as his mistakes. Stringing together privilege, charisma, and denial, Duchovny inhabits a role he knows well: the charmingly problematic man who believes he’s still in control.

Jamie is not innocent, but he’s not deplorable. He is human, flawed, infuriating, and vulnerable. The kind of victim audiences don’t quite know how to feel about, which is precisely why Malice works.

The women (and the fractures we don’t see)

Carice van Houten plays Nat Tanner with exhaustion, intelligence, pride, and emotional fragility — all at once. Christine Adams and the supporting cast circle the Tanner household with intention, portraying a family that looks stable from the outside but is quietly collapsing.

Malice understands something many series don’t: Wealthy families don’t break in a single blow — they break in tiny fractures, widened by whoever knows where to push.

Adam knows.

Conclusion: discomfort as entertainment

Malice is built to unsettle. There is no moral comfort, no easy catharsis, no obvious “right side.” Adam’s sociopathy never earns sympathy, but the Tanner family isn’t a sanctuary either. Everyone carries flaws, blind spots, secrets — and James Wood uses these shadows to craft a thriller that never lets the viewer rest.

In the end, Malice reminds us that revenge is rarely about justice.
It’s about ruin.

Cold, calculated, intentional ruin — the very definition of its name.