SUNDAY BEST
Young actresses spark two new dramas
TWO new buzzy, wellreviewed series air on Sunday night: “Big
Little Lies” (HBO) and “The Good Fight” (CBS All Access).
The former is selling us on its A-list cast, with Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon; the latter on the next chapter of “The Good Wife” favorites Christine Baranski and Cush Jumbo.
But in both cases, the dramas’ most fascinating characters turn out to be their younger, lesser-known female stars.
In “Big Little Lies,” we see a maturing actor, 25-year-old Shailene Woodley — who has received excellent notices playing teen roles in the Oscar-winning George Clooney film “The Descendants” and the box-office hit “The Fault In Our Stars” — playing a single mom with a past best seen in a rearview mirror (and holding her own against established talents such as Laura Dern, Kidman and Witherspoon). In “The Good Fight,” we get a Scottish TV actress, 30-year-old Rose Leslie (“Downton Abbey,” the tragic Ygritte of “Game of Thrones”) shining in her first big contemporary role alongside a veteran company of actors.
“Big Little Lies” is a murder mystery about the well-heeled moms of Monterey, Calif., whose obsession with their own social status leads to a homicide at a school fundraiser. Against a backdrop of surf-splashed, glass-fronted beach houses, the cozy world of three mothers — all with first-graders — is shaken by the arrival of a fourth young mother, Jane Chapman (Woodley), whose son, Ziggy (Iain Armitage), is accused of hurting his young female classmate on the first day of school. He denies it, but as the two outsiders in the community, Jane and her son are suspect.
Dropping Ziggy off at school in jeans and a plain black coat, hair pulled back in ponytail, Jane can’t hope to compete with the camera-ready moms of Monterey. There’s brittle Madeline MacKenzie (Witherspoon), icily languid Celeste Wright (Kidman) and career mom Renata Klein (Laura Dern) — who mistakenly thinks Jane works as a nanny.
Even Jane is self--aware enough to know something’sg’s off. She tells Celeste and Madelineine howhow beauti-beautiful they are. “I see thisthis life and it’s wonderful,onderful, but it doesn’tn’t quite belong to me . . . You guys are so right —— exactly right — and thathat makesmakes meme feel wrong.”g.”
Onee senses what’s wrongg with Jane, her very “otherness,” will drive the narrative enginee of this show, writtenn byby DavidDavid E.E. Kelleyy and based on the novel by Liane Moriarty.riarty. Of the four principal characters,rs, Jane is thethe oneone shrouded in mystery.ry. For one, she’s a loner. There’s no manman toto helphelp her raise Ziggy. And as opposed to the large homes of the other Monterey women, Jane lives in a shabby, one-onebedroom cottage andnd sleeps on a lumpy pull-out couchuch —— with a gun under her pillow.
As opposed to thehe womenwomen of “Big Little Lies,” who maymay oror maymay notnot be connected to a murder, Maia Rindell almost knowsows too much. A law school graduate,uate, she has a family connectionn to Diane Lockhart (Baranski),i), who’s also her godmotherr and who gets her a job at herr firm shortly before she retires. Before long, however,ver, Maia is embroiled inin aa family scandal eerilyily reminiscent of the Madoff Ponzi scheme.me. There’s no relief at home either, as Maia’saia’s attorney girlfriend advises her not to talk to her own parents, who are naturally undernder investigation.
Amidst all this upheaval, Maia is assigned her first case, a pro ro bono defense of a shoe store clerk whose wages are being garnished shed because he was coerced into confessing to stealing shoes. Although she acquits herself nicely in court, she ultimately y loses the case — a nice dose ofo realism. Rather than resorting ng to histrionics as her character r processes each blow to her world view, Leslie plays her scenes with an understateme ent that earns our sympathy.
“Big Little Lies” and “The GoodG Fight” may have had a best-se elling book and a long-running serie ies, respectively, to sell us on thei ir premise— but it’s Jane and MaiaM who will keep us watching.