SEDUCED BY ‘LIES’
Comedy drama exposes flaws of perfect suburban moms’ lives
‘Big Little Lies” introduces you to the most insufferable, pretentious people on the planet. And then it gets juicy. This adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s best-selling novel from Academy Award-winner Reese Witherspoon (“Walk the Line”) and David E. Kelley (“Ally McBeal”) delivers a powerhouse cast in what some will consider a revamp of “Desperate Housewives.”
There’s some truth to that. Like that long-running ABC series, “Big” focuses on several impossibly privileged women in Monterey, Calif., and peels back their smiles to find the raw truths underneath.
And there’s a murder. Of course, there has to be a murder in a show like this. “Big,” however, plays with time and doesn’t reveal the victim or the culprit, not right away. That’s a mystery underpinning the seven-episode limited series.
Madeline (Witherspoon) is the acknowledged busybody of the community. She works part time for a theater company, is married to nice-guy computer engineeer Ed (Adam Scott, “Parks and Recreation”) and frets she’s losing her two daughters to their crunchy granola stepmom Bonnie (Zoe Kravitz, “Mad Max: Fury Road”).
Celeste (Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman, “The Hours”) is the envy of the community with her younger, gorgeous husband (Alexander Skarsgard, “True Blood”), adorable twins and a mansion by the ocean.
Jane (Shailene Woodley, “Divergent”) is the newcomer to the group, a struggling single mom to 6-year-old Ziggy.
Their circle also includes the likes of Renata (Laura Dern), who humblebrags, “I joined the board of PayPal. What was I thinking? Adding one more thing to my life.”
What can you do with a person like her?
I must confess, a half-hour in, I was wondering how I was going to get through the premiere, much less the series. And then something happened. Two of the children are involved in an altercation. A little girl is left with bruises around her neck. The boy denies hurting her. Their firstgrade teacher stupidly involves the entire class and their parents at the pickup spot.
And just like that, the moms are at war.
“Big” makes it all brutally authentic, capturing how a small conflict can splinter a community. Everyone takes sides. And those perfect lives? Suddenly we see just how broken they really are.
Jane is searching for the father of her child. As much as she tries to rule over her own kids, Madeline is losing a war with herself. Celeste is being beaten at home.
Witherspoon, Kidman and Woodley don’t typically work in TV, and they bring their best work to this comedy drama. Kidman has never been more affecting as a woman slowly awakening to the realization that her husband is a monster. Witherspoon fills out a complicated, often unlikable woman. The scripts have some smart points to make about how mothers are often forced into untenable choices when it comes to raising their children.
HBO made the first six episodes available for review, and they’re all entertaining, but I have my worries about the finale — it’s going to have to burn through a lot of plot in a short amount of time.
In the second episode, Madeline comments, “I love my grudges. I tend to them like little pets.”
On “Big Little Lies,” that secret is way out in the open.