The Veil is an American thriller television limited series written by Steven Knight, produced by FX Productions, and starring Elisabeth Moss and Yumna Marwan. The series premiered on FX on Hulu on April 30, 2024.
Premise
A thriller series about a potentially deadly game of truth and lies as two women travel from Istanbul to Paris and London, with one of them possessing a secret that the other needs to expose.
Cast
Main
- Elisabeth Moss as Imogen Salter, a veteran MI6 agent with a specialty in undercover work
- Yumna Marwan as Adilah El Idrissi, a French woman suspected of being an ISIS leader planning an attack on the West
- Dali Benssalah as Malik Amar, an agent with French intelligence agency DGSE and Salter's boyfriend
- Josh Charles as Max Peterson, an obnoxious CIA agent collaborating with Amar and Salter
- Thibault de Montalembert as Magritte, Amar's superior at DGSE
Guest starring
- James Purefoy as Sir Michael Althorp, Imogen's mentor
- Dan Wyllie as Guy, Imogen's United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) contact
- Joana Ribeiro as Sandrina, another associate of Imogen, also at UNICRI
- Haluk Bilginer as Mr. Demir
- Alec Secăreanu as Emir
- Kobna Holdbrook-Smith as Johnson
- Nadia Larbioune as Nour
- Keyla and Neyla Bara as Yasmina, Nour's niece
- Phill Langhorne
- Aron von Andrian
Episodes
Production
Development
The project was announced in August 2022, and marks the fourth series Steven Knight has made with FX Productions. Knight also acts as executive producer. Elisabeth Moss is also executive producer via her Love & Squalor production company for whom Lindsey McManus is also an executive producer. Denise Di Novi and Nina Tassler of PatMa Productions also executive produce.
Casting
Elisabeth Moss was confirmed in the lead role in August 2022. Moss has stated that developing an authentic British accent and practicing the action and stunt choreography to make her character believable was more challenging than any previous role. She started learning the accent several months before filming began.
In February 2023, Josh Charles, Dali Benssalah, and Yumna Marwan joined the cast. In March 2023, Haluk Bilginer was added to the cast. The cast also includes Alec Secareanu, Thibault de Montalembert, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, James Purefoy, Joana Ribeiro, Phill Langhorne, Dan Wyllie, Aron von Andrian, and Dali Benssalah.
Filming
Filming took place in Turkey, which wrapped in March 2023. Other filming locations include Paris and London. Filming took place in Kent, England in May 2023, with locations including Canterbury Cathedral. Whilst filming a stunt in Istanbul, Moss fractured a vertebra in her spine.
Release
The series was shown on Hulu in the United States, premiering on April 30, 2024, with a two episode premiere, Star in Latin America and Disney under the Star banner internationally.
Reception
Viewership
JustWatch, a guide to streaming content with access to data from more than 20 million users around the world, estimated that The Veil was the third most-streamed series in the U.S. from April 29 to May 5. The streaming aggregator Reelgood, which tracks 20 million monthly viewing decisions across all streaming platforms in the U.S., calculated that The Veil was the ninth most-streamed show in the U.S. for the week ending May 29.
Critical response
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 54% approval rating with an average rating of 5.7/10, based on 35 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Elisabeth Moss' dramatic power remains undiminished with another arresting performance, but The Veil's clunky storytelling doesn't live up to its star's chops." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 52 out of 100 based on 20 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Aramide Tinubu of Variety praised the series as 'gripping', commending Moss' performance, the action and the pacing. Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times said 'As a spy story, it’s a decent example of its kind, but as a dramatic two-hander, fueled by subtle performances from Moss and Marwan, it’s pretty terrific.' Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone was more mild in his praise, also praising Moss and the action sequences but questioning the balance between spy thriller and psychological drama. Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter complimented the opening and Moss, but felt that ' The Veil first becomes perfunctory — Homeland-lite — before fizzling entirely in its concluding episodes, in which almost none of its twisty reveals hits deeply on either a plot or character level.' Benjamin Lee of The Guardian awarded the first episode one star out of five, dubbing it 'a bafflingly bad time-waster' and criticizing the plot and acting. Saloni Gajjar of The A.V. Club was also harsh, dubbing the series 'boring and aimless'.
References
External links
- The Veil at IMDb
