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Streaming Partner: HBO
Genre: Drama, mystery, dark comedy
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Alexander Skarsgård, Adam Scott, Zoë Kravitz
Year: 2017
“All conflict can be traced back to someone’s feelings getting hurt, don’t you think?”
We wanted to watch this ever since we knew it had won many Emmy awards in mini series category. And one more thing that piqued our attention was it is based on the novel of Liane Moriarty of the same name. We have read her "Truly, madly, guilty" and liked it. She is the author who introduced us to Australia. No, we knew the existence of this country on the map. The traveler in us knew that much. It's about Australian people, their lifestyle, habits, relationship, cuisine, etc. Fiction maybe, but window to their world nonetheless.
The second point was the actors, Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Shailene Woodley.
This miniseries consist of 7 episodes. The drama is set in Monterey, California about upper-middle-class people who has envious ocean-facing bungalow; big, spacious, sparkling kitchens; expensive cars; branded clothes; and beautiful children. The children are the common link between all major characters because they all attend the same elementary school.
Plot: The story follows the lives of three women. Madeline (Reese Witherspoon), mother of a teenage daughter and a first grader. She is divorced and remarried, but still has trouble dealing with her ex-husband, Nathan and his new wife Bonnie. She is nosy and likes to meddle in other's business. Madeline befriends with Jane (Shailene Woodley), a single mother. She recently moved to this town for her son Ziggy's education. She has a dark past too. The trouble starts when Ziggy is accused of physically bullying another girl in the school. Then the battle lines are drawn between mothers and they are expected to take sides. Third is Celeste (Nicole Kidman), a successful lawyer once, now stay-at-home mother to her twin boys. Superficially her life is picture perfect with young, rich, good looking husband. She is in denial of physical abuse meted out by her husband, Perry. Their relationship is volatile and aggressive. Along the way the three women forms a close knit friendship.
WeReflect: We know that somebody is dead and the investigation is on. The story jumps forward and backward giving us the hint to predict who got murdered on the fateful trivia night. The climax was predictable, but the whodunit part had us in awe.
Until the first two episodes we were thinking "Oh! Another Desperate Housewives". However, the drama is gripping from there afterwards. The best scenes for us are Celeste's sessions with her therapist. First she overlooks her husband's violent behavior, then she blames herself for the abusive relationship, she desperately tries to believe her husband loves her, and finally comes to term with the need to leave the vicious marriage. It talks about domestic violence and how difficult it is for women to walk out that relationship.
The soundtrack was melodious. We loved the Elvis version of "Wonder of you" song on the trivia night sung by Ed. We never heard of that song before and we've heard it multiple times after that. Such beautiful tune and lyrics. And we need to read the book too. Oh! We're not that sort of people who couldn't read or see something while already knowing the story. It intrigues us more to know how different it is in book or vice versa.
Very much excited to watch season 2 with the same main cast along with Meryl Streep. And Who doesn't like Meryl Streep?
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