'Members Only: Palm Beach' exposes the exhausting reality of status chasing

Netflix's "Members Only: Palm Beach" might be one of the most unintentionally bleak reality shows to land on screens in recent years. From the first episode, it feels less like a modern series and more like a time capsule dug up from a dusty country club locker room.

The clothes, the hair, the make-up, the attitudes, all of it screams validation hunger wrapped in designer labels. At one point, I genuinely checked the release date because surely this couldn’t be made in a time where women are supposedly evolving.

The cast, Rosalyn Yellin, Hilary Musser, Ro-mina Ustayev, Maria Cozamanis and Taja Abitbol are presented as women “living the dream” in Palm Beach. If this is the dream, someone forgot to wake them up.

The entire show revolves around rigid social rules, old money versus new wealth, and an obsession with status so intense it borders on parody. In Palm Beach, who you know matters more than who you are, and these women are competing for the invisible crown of social supremacy.

For context, Palm Beach has long been a playground for America’s elite. Old families, billionaires, hedge fund royalty, political heavyweights; this is a place where legacy counts and access is currency.

Private clubs, charity galas, invitation-only dinners and carefully curated guest lists are the backbone of social life. It’s less about enjoyment and more about being seen, preferably by the right people, at the right table, wearing the right dress.

And the charities. Good grief. This charity, that charity, another luncheon for something vague and expensive. The events themselves look painfully dull, yet they’re treated like Olympic trials for social acceptance. If "Palm Beach: Members Only" is meant to make wealth look aspirational, it fails spectacularly. Being rich has rarely looked this tedious.

The title alone says it all. “You can’t sit with us” energy from start to finish. And if you’re thinking clearly for even a second, you’ll realise that bending yourself into emotional origami just to fit into elite circles is meaningless.

Especially when inclusion comes with conditions: dress like this, act like that, flatter this person, attend that function, smile through the boredom. All so you can say you once stood next to someone important and hoped it rubbed off.

Yellin is a case study on this. She lives in what can only be described as a Fanta-coloured monument to excess and appears to worship a former “charity queen” who ceremoniously handed her the social crown. The way Yellin presents herself feels so exaggerated that one can only hope it’s performance art. Otherwise, it’s deeply concerning.

Yellin appoints herself as the Palm Beach finishing school headmistress, particularly when it comes to Ustayev. According to the unspoken rules, dressing appropriately means either displaying cleavage, showing your knees, not both.

Yet, there are several aggressive boob jobs on display, the kind that look less like enhancement and more like flotation devices. Somehow, despite this near-uniform of exposed skin, Ustayev is singled out for not dressing “right”.

From the very beginning, Ustayev is treated as the outsider who must be corrected. Her crime? Not conforming quickly enough. Watching her shrink herself to fit into this bizarre hierarchy is genuinely sad.

There’s something deeply uncomfortable about seeing a grown woman feel pressured to change everything about herself just to maybe meet someone powerful, so she can later name-drop them like a LinkedIn achievement. To what end? To say, “Look at me, I know Elon Musk”? And then what?

The show leans heavily into that initiation-style dynamic: pick on the new girl, make her feel inadequate, and frame cruelty as “guidance”. It’s exhausting to watch and painfully familiar. Like being back in a school library with a book you never wanted to read, except the book costs millions and smells like entitlement.

Then there’s Maria Cozamanis, introduced as the Palm Beach DJ, a casting choice that remains baffling. Every second word is “friggin”, and she carries the kind of emotional baggage that turns every dinner into a therapy session nobody asked for. Everything triggers her. Nothing can just be lekker. Tears, attention-seeking, dramatic exits, rinse and repeat.

What’s striking is what we don’t see. Hardly any husbands. Barely any children. No real lives. Just wealthy women circling the same social ladder, all trying to be the grand madame. We’ve seen how that ends -  just ask Karen Huger  from "The Real Housewives of Potomac." Not well, sis. Not well.

Ultimately, "Palm Beach Members Only" isn’t entertaining because the stakes are meaningless. Watching people elbow their way into a world most viewers couldn’t care less about is not compelling television. It’s a mess. A boring one.

I would’ve preferred more shots of Palm Beach itself. The views. The ocean. The architecture. Anything but watching grown women exhaust themselves chasing approval in a social club that offers nothing of value in return.

Money can buy access. It can’t buy depth. 

Rating: * poorly executed film with minimal redeeming qualities.