New Paramount+ series Girl Taken will rip your heart out — but its cast think this classic comedy is the perfect way to decompress after
Kicking 2026 off in the darkest tone possible, Girl Taken is this week's new chilling crime drama on Paramount+. In fact, it's so chilling, you should stream this classic comedy straight after.
Alfie Allen as Rick Hansen in Girl Taken. (Image credit: Paramount)
WARNING: spoilers for Girl Taken ahead.
From today (January 8), new crime thriller Girl Taken is available to stream globally on Paramount+. Based on the novel Baby Doll by Hollie Overton, the six-parter follows twin sisters Lily (Tallulah Evans) and Abby (Delphi Evans), whose lives are shattered when Lily is abducted from their quiet rural English town by beloved local teacher Rick Hansen (Alfie Allen, star of 3 Body Problem season 2).
Stream Bridesmaids after surviving 'uncomfortable' new Paramount+ series Girl Taken
"Definitely Bridesmaids," Halfpenny tells me. "Everyone's seen Bridesmaids. If you haven't, why not? Let's watch something you've already seen. It's familiar. You know what's going to happen next. There's no shocks, there's no terrible moments. It's just fun. It's just a comedy, and it's not real."
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It's a genius choice, and I'm not even going to include a trailer for it here – because you really should know what we're talking about. Frankly, I'm not sure there's anything that Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Melissa McCarthy couldn't make lighter.
If we had a decompression checklist, Halfpenny has cleared it in one swoop. As she and Allen tell me, the 'problem' with Girl Taken is that it's all to real, despite simultaneously feeling like a world away.
"You hear all the time about people literally living double lives, and you think that somebody couldn't possibly be able to do that," Halfpenny adds. "But it's way more common than you think. I'm not suggesting these people are doing what Rick's doing, but to find out that the person that you're with is nothing like the person you think they are... I don't know how you would go on to ever trust anyone again.
"Because you think, 'well, I can't trust my own judgment now.' And I think the same with Eve. The one person that she thought really was on her side, and confided in was the guy that was doing it. And I think it really shatters your illusion of your sense of being able to trust yourself."
Didn't I tell you this series is going to rip your heart out? For Allen, double-edged evil is all in the look and feel of the show itself.