Run Away is rated TV-MA, meaning it’s intended for mature audiences only.
It wouldn’t feel like the turn of the calendar without Netflix rolling out another Harlan Coben limited series something engineered to jolt, distract, and occasionally aggravate us just enough to make switching off our higher reasoning feel like a harmless indulgence. These adaptations exist in a particular zone of entertainment: slick, breathless, and designed to outrun their own weaknesses. When they work, they move so fast that you barely notice the cracks forming underneath those familiar issues of logic, coincidence, and behavior no human being would ever actually exhibit. Run Away, adapted from one of Coben’s reliably devoured paperbacks, comes charging out of the gate with confidence, propelling itself forward just quickly enough that the seams don’t show. At least not at first. Eventually, though, the story trips over its own momentum, collapsing into a thicket of absurd coincidences and head-scratching twists that will test the loyalty of anyone who isn’t already fully committed to the Coben worldview.
At the center of it all is Simon Greene, played by James Nesbitt with a bruised intensity that nearly holds the whole enterprise together. Simon is a father stuck in suspended grief, living with the daily ache of not knowing where his drug-addicted daughter Paige has gone or whether she’s even alive. Paige (Ellie de Lange) fled home months earlier, and Simon has been quietly searching for her ever since, even as his wife urges him to let go and allow their daughter to confront her own demons. That wife, played by Minnie Driver, is given shockingly little to do with what should have been a rich emotional role a waste you can feel every time she appears.
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When Simon receives an anonymous message claiming Paige will be busking in a park later that day, his desperation flares into action. He finds her there, hollow-eyed and visibly terrified, and you can almost feel the fear tighten in his chest. The encounter goes sideways fast. Paige’s boyfriend enters the picture, Simon lashes out in protective fury, and before long he’s caught on camera assaulting a homeless man footage that spreads online with the speed and cruelty we’ve all come to expect. Then the boyfriend turns up savagely murdered. Paige vanishes again. Suddenly, every terrible possibility is in play. Did Paige do it? Did Simon? Or is something darker closing in around them both? Those questions drive Simon into the city’s most dangerous corners, from drug houses to shadowy backrooms, as he tries to find his daughter or at least understand what has happened to her.
Running alongside Simon’s increasingly frantic quest are the other narrative threads that any seasoned miniseries viewer will instinctively clock as future collision points. There’s a loosely sketched police investigation led by Isaac Fagbenle, played with easy charisma by Alfred Enoch. Isaac never quite trusts Simon, yet repeatedly allows him just enough freedom to make increasingly disastrous choices, which strains credibility even as it keeps the plot moving. There’s also Elena Ravenscroft, a private investigator portrayed by Ruth Jones, saddled with a mountain of personal backstory that the series insists on unpacking whether it fits or not. She’s searching for a missing child of her own and inevitably crosses paths with Simon, their parallel griefs circling one another without quite clicking into something meaningful. And then there are the assassins Ash and Dee-Dee oddly miscast and even more oddly motivated, methodically killing seemingly ordinary people for reasons that are deliberately withheld. Their presence raises all the right questions, even if the eventual answers don’t quite justify the buildup. Who ordered the hits? Were they responsible for the boyfriend’s death? And how does any of this connect to the ominous cult lurking in the background?
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Yes, a cult. What begins as a grounded, emotionally recognizable story about a father trying to save his child slowly drifts into something far more implausible. As Coben layers on revelations, secret histories, and escalating twists, the series grows increasingly detached from the raw human pain that initially made it compelling. Nesbitt, who proved his ability to inhabit this kind of tortured paternal role years ago in The Missing, does everything he can to anchor the chaos. You believe him, even when the story asks you not to. Unfortunately, he’s often left carrying the weight alone. The supporting performances rarely rise to meet him, though Enoch suggests he could be terrific in a more disciplined procedural. Driver, meanwhile, is sidelined almost immediately, wounded early on and confined to a hospital bed for most of the series a baffling misuse of a gifted actor.
Everyone approaches a Harlan Coben adaptation with their own tolerance threshold that internal gauge that measures how many implausibilities you’re willing to forgive before things tip into nonsense. For viewers still easing their way out of holiday sluggishness, Run Away may hold together just long enough across its eight episodes to remain compulsively watchable. It never truly bores, and that counts for something. Others, though, may find themselves wishing that next year’s Coben installment would tether itself a little more firmly to logic, character, and the recognizable rhythms of real life.
Detailed Content Breakdown for Parents
Violence & Intensity: Violence is a constant undercurrent. There are physical assaults, scenes of murder (some graphic, others implied), and moments of sustained menace. A key early scene involves a public beating that becomes viral footage, and later episodes feature executions, threats, and confrontations that escalate in brutality. The violence isn’t cartoonish—it’s meant to feel ugly and consequential, which makes it more unsettling.
Language: Strong profanity appears throughout, including frequent uses of the F-word and other harsh language. The tone is aggressive and emotionally charged, especially during confrontations and moments of despair.
Sexual Content / Nudity: Sexual content is limited but adult in nature. There are references to sexual relationships, drug-fueled lifestyles, and exploitation, though explicit nudity is minimal. The themes surrounding sexuality are more troubling than titillating, often tied to vulnerability and manipulation.
Drugs, Alcohol & Smoking: Drug use is a major theme, not just background color. Characters are shown using hard drugs, dealing, overdosing, and living within addiction-driven environments. Alcohol use is common. These scenes are realistic and bleak, not glamorized—but they may be disturbing or triggering for some viewers.
Scary or Disturbing Scenes: Several sequences are designed to unsettle: cult imagery, assassins methodically killing targets, tense stalking scenes, and the emotional horror of a parent confronting the possible death of a child. The fear here is psychological as much as physical.
Recommended Age Range Best suited for: Adults 18+Possibly mature older teens (17+) with parental discussion, depending on sensitivity to violence and addiction themes
The entire series was screened for review. Run Away premieres on Netflix January 1, 2026.
I am a journalist with 10+ years of experience, specializing in family-friendly film reviews.