[yasr_overall_rating]
The apparently perfect lives of three mothers of first graders unravel to the point of murder.
When I originally heard Liane Moriarty’s “Big Little Lies” was going to be adapted into a limited series for HBO, I thought I was going to die from the anticipation, the waiting. The waiting always gets me. I’d much rather not know anything and then stumble upon a gem late. With the end of the series, I’m left mouth agape, dazzled by drama, and dying from my need (and shame) for more. “Big Little Lies” is high-brow drama, that makes you feel like you’ve become refined in your tastes after lolling around for so long with certain reality housewives. I kid (somewhat). “Big Little Lies,” exceeded my expectations. It’s too often that adapted series disappoint, feel lackluster, and sometimes cheapened. But I shouldn’t have been so surprised, as director Jean-Marc Vallée rarely disappoints.
Keeping true to Moriarty’s plot and structure, we are quickly introduced to a suburban drama enhanced by death. Snips of snide and salacious comments of the women at the center of the drama are provided for investigators by community members who can’t keep from controlling their baser selves. They are living for this moment, saturated in their own sordid excitement at the opportunity to talk, or rather speculate about these women and their personal affairs, both public and private. These clips help piece together what happened. And while it is apparent an incident occurred that ended in a possible murder, there is far more involved than anyone in that community could imagine, so we are taken back to day one.
It is the day the newest member of this alcove of helicopter parents, Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley) befriends Madeline McKenzie (Reese Witherspoon) while taking her son Ziggy (Iain Armitage) to orientation day at his new school. Jane also befriends Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman), best friend to Madeline, and makes an enemy of Renata Klein (Laura Dern). All of these women have children in the same first-grade class, and the day ends on a sour note when Renata Klein’s child, Amabella (Ivy George), points Ziggy out of a line of children indicating that he choked her. An accusation of violence, of bullying, that taints both Jane and Ziggy’s character and reputation within the community, especially after Jane refuses to have Ziggy apologize for something that she believes he didn’t do. A parental choice equivalent to napalm. Soon lines are drawn, and the bombs keep coming.
“Big Little Lies,” in both book and television form, at first comes off as a fluffy suburban crime drama, with self-important housewives at the center of it. But don’t be fooled so easily because it is more than that. It touches on serious issues such as domestic violence, bullying, and the struggles of parenting in a world where you are judged on the slightest of infractions. The cast of “Big Little Lies,” particularly the women at the heart of the matter, Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Shailene Woodley, have amazing chemistry with one another and give the show a vitality that reverberates from your T.V. screen down to your gut. Some moments can hold your breath hostage.
Nicole Kidman stands out in particular. She keeps surprising me, delving into more complex characters, and in “Big Little Lies,” she is awash with the cool melancholy associated with the façade of perfection. Her interactions with Alexander Skarsgård (her husband in the series) are some of the most intense on the show. They are able to capture the delicate subtleties of a diseased relationship. The entire cast, the setting, and the music is perfection. It’s this perfect melding of elements that creates this living and breathing embodiment of the manic and the mellow, the explosion and the diffusion that can possess you and shake you to your core. “Big Little Lies” is a show that you can watch over and over again if only to admire the music or to catch the glint in the actors’ eyes when they hit it just right, and everybody hits it.
Now available on Blu-ray & DVD
