‘The Art of Sarah’ (2026) Netflix Series Review - Pricey Purses, Con Artists

After the brilliance of Kohrra Season 2 and How to Get to Heaven From Belfast, I was expecting The Art of Sarah to redeem the crime/thriller/murder/mystery genre as well. That would have been a hat trick for Netflix—it would have made up for all those clumsy, indifferent thrillers it likes to dump on its platform profusely. Lightning, alas, fails to strike thrice. But then, it was probably a tall order. The two-day honeymoon period is over. The streak of excellence breaks with The Art of Sarah. Created by Kim Jin-min and Chu Song-yeon, the eight-episode mystery thriller is too busy admiring itself to entertain its audience. Its sole objective is to disorient the viewer, which it attempts to do by playing with the identity of Sarah—or rather by asking, "Who's the real Sarah?"

I can't say I was terribly excited for the answer. The reason is simple: the series never leaves us doubting whether we are watching Sarah or a copycat of Sarah. It's easy to spot the fake from the original. The show does try to shock us when Shin Hye-sun, as Sarah, confesses that she is somebody else in front of Detective Park Mu-gyeong (Lee Joon-hyuk), but it all turns out to be a mere cliffhanger designed to ensure that the viewer sticks around for one more episode. Sure, the central idea is promising enough. By taking us into a world of privilege and glamour, class and status, fake and original, The Art of Sarah tries to expose the emptiness behind a shiny façade and hold up a mirror to the common man who falls prey to advertising and PR.

This commentary, however, is as shallow as the skin-deep lives of the rich in the show. Choi Chae-u (Bae Jong-ok), the chairwoman of Samwol Department Store, is almost a caricature of a haughty socialite, so you dismiss her outright. Meanwhile, someone like Jung Yeo-jin (Park Bo-kyung), the CEO of Nox, and even a loan shark in need of a kidney transplant (Jung Jin-young), are given just enough traits and problems to fit neatly into the machinery of the plot. Jin-min and Song-yeon don't bother detailing the outer and inner lives of their characters. The puppets on the screen are devoid of history, family, friends, hobbies, or interests. No outside influence—political or social—nor even casual asides are allowed to penetrate the boundaries of this tightly sealed script. There are no conversations about music, movies, food, culture, or politics. People talk only about handbags, as if nothing else exists.

The Art of Sarah is so single-mindedly focused on the elites that it never convinces us their pricey purses are actually shaping the mood of the public. We see only generic social media posts and a long line outside a store (it looks like a stock image). No wonder you're less interested in corporate rivalries and more inclined to ask why these women are so obsessed over products that seem meaningless to everyone except them—products that turn them into both seller and consumer simultaneously. Then again, all the blather about fake and original ultimately serves as a setup for the interrogation scenes where Sarah spars with Mu-gyeong. But even there, the series achieves nothing. Instead of making you sit up in your seat, it lulls you into sleep with dialogue delivered so somberly, so calculatedly measured, that it feels as though Hye-sun and Joon-hyuk are engaged in drama practice. If this is how the series imagines people talk, no one needs to commit murder. They'll simply die of ennui.

Final Score- [3.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times