Big Little Lies (HBO) [** Spoilers **]

JP Liz V1

Marje wrote: »

Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon could be coming to TV. The actresses have signed on to star in a limited series based on the New York Times best-selling book Big Little Lies, with David E. Kelley (The Crazy Ones) attached to write and executive-produce, EW has confirmed.
From author Liane Moriarty, the subversive comedy tells the story of three mothers of kindergartners whose perfect lives begin to unravel to the point of murder.
Kidman and her production banner Blossom Films, as well as Witherspoon and her banner Pacific Standard, optioned the rights to the book in August for a potential feature film, but the project will now be shopped as a limited series to various cable networks and streaming services. Kelley, Witherspoon, Kidman and Moriarty will all executive-produce.


Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnBriUX61mU

Looks to be shown on Sky Atlantic in March

JP Liz V1

This starts tonight on HBO

David E. Kelley has wrote all 7 episodes based on Liane Moriarty’s novel with Jean-Marc Vallée directing

Mr E

OP updated with working trailer (previous one was broken).

I've heard great things about this so I can't wait to see it.

Unearthly

First 2 episodes are out there.

Very good start in my opinion. Good mystery and interested to see how it plays out

messy tessy

Really good! What a cast! Reese Witherspoon plays a great character in it.

JP Liz V1

It starts on Sky Atlantic on Monday March 13th at 9pm

Cina

Slow start, but enjoyable so far.

Reese Witherspoon is great, her character makes me laugh quite a bit.

Definitely feel it'll all kick off at some point, well worth watching.

JaMarcusHustle

Have watched the first 3 episodes. Really liking it.

The homes are absolutely spectacular

messy tessy

JaMarcusHustle wrote: »

The homes are absolutely spectacular

The walk in wardrobe in Celeste's house is amazing!!

Really great episode this week - proper laugh out loud moments

frogstar

Haven't read the book so do not have any idea on the characters involved.

Reese (and I'm not a fan usually) and Laura Seen play great parts, as well as the men and children, love Ziggy.

Can't help but think that Nicole is completely mis cast in this. She's not all that and i think Elle McPherson or Denise Richards would be better cast. I think Nicole is the only thing that lets it down

JP Liz V1

It reminds me of a darker take on Desperate Housewives, so far Reese's Madeline is the mvp, show stealer for me

retro:electro

Reese is excellent in this, can't take my eyes off her when she's on screen. The kid playing Woodley's son (Ziggy) is terrific. Excited to see where this goes. I like that there's suspicion surrounding every story line.

whatever76

Ep2 tonight was great - really enjoying it ...Agree Reece is playing a blinder !

Excellent finale. Very clever.

dark crystal

Shelby Scary Tugboat wrote: »

Excellent finale. Very clever.

I had a feeling about halfway through the series that

Perry was the rapist in Jane's flashbacks. Glad he finally got his comeuppance, the little sh!t

.

Have to say I thoroughly enjoyed that series from beginning to end (I binge watched the first 6 episodes over the weekend!). Top notch acting from the cast too, especially Kidman.

JaMarcusHustle

Very good miniseries, though I attribute much of my fondness for it to salivating over Monterey.

tupenny

Brilliant mini series. I didnt see that ending coming at all!

Snoopy1

Really loved this show. Nicole kidman looks awful now.though

FouxDaFaFa

I think I'm very much in the minority here but I didn't love it. I think the hype around it is a bit much.

I anticipated the "reveal" at the end, mostly because of

how Jane and Perry would be scheduled to be at the same event and Perry would have to work. They kept missing each other.

and it made sense from the whole "soap opera" vibe of the show.

Don't get me wrong, It's well-made and there are some really nice performances (Witherspoon in particular was very good and it was a joy to watch Dern chewing up the scenery) but it felt like the satire didn't land properly. Like the whole thing just missed the mark in terms of tone. I think one of my primary joys watching the show was seeing the houses, as some have mentioned. My God.

I'm on episode 3 and loving it. Not gonna click on your spoilers. Music is great.

I stayed in Monterrey last year and it is a beautiful place. I've been on you tube listening to the soundtrack too. At the end of EP2, Celeste and her hubby danced to my wedding song! Harvest moon by Neil Young.

claiva

Snoopy1 wrote: »

Really loved this show. Nicole kidman looks awful now.though

What ?
She looked pretty good to me !!!!
Considering she is nearly 50 years old.

She is in amazing shape.

Yes, a little too much botox and the wig was weird but other than that I thought she looked great.
She never uses a body double either don't forget.

Most others do (for the nudey bits)

Nervous Wreck

Finished this last night. Fantastic show. I see Witherspoon and Kidman are set to coproduce another adaptation from the same author. I'll be on the look out for that. Witherspoon particularly was great in this.

retro:electro

Absolutely loved this series. Very satisfying ending, which is rare these days! Every single actor was fantastic, from adults to the kids, but for me Shailene Woodley absolutely stole the screen. Fantastic actress.
What an amazing ensemble of actors. Great scenery, great soundtrack. Loved it.

WoolyJumper

Yeah I have to agree, everything worked for me. Great acting, soundtrack and the storyline built up nicely to a really satisfying ending. It was pretty funny at times and I genuinely felt tense throughout the entire final episode. Glad to hear Kidman and Witherspoon are working on another project together

messy tessy

Snoopy1 wrote: »

Really loved this show. Nicole kidman looks awful now.though

Nicole Kidman is absolutely gorgeous in this.

retro:electro

messy tessy wrote: »

Nicole Kidman is absolutely gorgeous in this.

I thought she looked great too. I was never gone on her as an actress but she impressed me so much in this, especially her solo scenes with the therapist.

youngblood

How do these 6 year olds have better musical taste than me????

longshotvalue

youngblood wrote: »

How do these 6 year olds have better musical taste than me????

This is one of the best mini-series Ive seen, and i went straight on spotify to to the playlist. The music is very good.

youngblood

Is there a big little lies playlist on Spotify?

messy tessy

youngblood wrote: »

Is there a big little lies playlist on Spotify?

Yep - Big Little Lies Soundtrack. Actually first thing I did too after the first episode. Thank you Madeline's daughter! Such good music.

youngblood

What an ending! Loved it!

seligehgit

Superb mini series.

SimonTemplar

Absolutely fantastic miniseries. Really great writing and memorable acting. Last episode was the tensest I'm been in a long time while watching a series. I'm pretty sure I'll forever associate Kidman, Witherspoon and Woodley with these roles. All three were amazing, especially Kidman who was always excellent at conveying brittle vulnerability. It's also good to see Woodley being able to showcase her talent outside of that awful Divergent series. The only nitpick is that I predicted a certain person's identity

Celeste's Husband = Jane's rapist

a few episodes before its reveal but that was a fairly minor criticism.

One other thing though - Madeline works part time 20 hrs a week at a local theater and her husband works from home as an IT contractor. However, they live in a perfect palatial home with a seemingly endless supply of money. This leads me to suspect that the husband is in fact an international arms dealer - it's always the quiet ones!

johnpatrick81

It really was fantastic. The performances all round were incredible.

The ending was a tad obvious, and a little too convenient, but yeah, bravo!

SimonTemplar

johnpatrick81 wrote: »

It really was fantastic. The performances all round were incredible.

The ending was a tad obvious, and a little too convenient, but yeah, bravo!

Given where all the characters are by the final episode, the ending is probably the only one where

a murder can happen but it is still a satisfying happy ending. I certainly didn't want any of the core women to die by the end, which is what I suspected would happen when I started watching it.

johnpatrick81

Yeah, for a second I thought it was someone else dressed in black and I was raging! Very satisfied it was who it was. But....yeah! Was the last scene a teaser for a second season or was it merely a sign that all may not be as rosy as it seemed?

Aimeee

Just watched the last two episodes now. Loved it. Thought Nicole Kidman excellent in this and normally not a fan of hers. Woodley excellent too. Guesssed halfway through that it might be Perry alright. All his business trips and that temper. Glad he got his comeuppance in the end. The detective probably won't let it go though.
Reminds me a little of The Affair set in Montauk. Note to self; never move to wealthy coastal towns in the US. Way too much going on!

duvetdayss

Have to say it was one of the best US series I've seen recently. Loved the scenery, music and acting!

Did anyone else find it hard to hear the dialogue? We needed subtitles, but we have moved house and still have no curtains so there's an echo...

CMOTDibbler

One of the most striking scenes for me was when

Jane recognised Perry.

Not a word spoken and everyone in the scene (bar Renata) knows what's happened.

Don't think I've ever been as moved by a no dialogue scene. Flawless acting and direction.

As a series, it's almost unique that so many top female actors have had such a vehicle to showcase their talents. And they absolutely nailed it.

johnpatrick81

duvetdayss wrote: »

Did anyone else find it hard to hear the dialogue? We needed subtitles, but we have moved house and still have no curtains so there's an echo...

Definitely! There was an awful lot of muffled conversations, never rewound and stuck on the subtitles so much before to catch missed phrases

youngblood

I actually hope there's no second series, it felt like a perfect story

S.M.B.

There won't be. Looks like the team might reunite to adapt another book by the same author but doubt the 3 leads would be sharing the screen again if that's the case.

Aimeee

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

One of the most striking scenes for me was when

Jane recognised Perry.

Not a word spoken and everyone in the scene (bar Renata) knows what's happened.

Don't think I've ever been as moved by a no dialogue scene. Flawless acting and direction.

As a series, it's almost unique that so many top female actors have had such a vehicle to showcase their talents. And they absolutely nailed it.

Agree with all of the above. I need to watch it again.

Evian98

duvetdayss wrote: »

Have to say it was one of the best US series I've seen recently. Loved the scenery, music and acting!

Did anyone else find it hard to hear the dialogue? We needed subtitles, but we have moved house and still have no curtains so there's an echo...

Absolutely agree. Dialogue very difficult to hear in parts. Excellent series....so compelling.

Roanmore

Very strange seeing Calamity Jane (Deadwood fans) as the Counselor.

The Black Oil

Just watched the first one, thought it was very good.

Deeper Blue

Just finished watching this. The scenes between Skarsgård and Kidman were a highlight, edge of the seat stuff. Witherspoon was great also.

Overall a top quality series.

The Black Oil

I got to the fourth episode over the weekend.

It shares some similarities to The Affair in its setting, idyllic seaside and there's a nasty death that hasn't been fully revealed yet, plus Chekov's gun is in play. Two of the characters have a rather inflated sense of self-importance, imo, and there's been a few scenes that were difficult to watch. It is good, though.

The Black Oil

Well, you’d be a bit tripped out after watching that, eh? Still digesting it somewhat. I think in someone else's hands, or with an overload of irritating subplots or twists and turns it could have been quite messy, or if Renata's warpath had continued. I mean, there were moments when I was thinking are these people really adults? I did laugh at Madeline's puking, or rather the third green spew. **** off, Bonnie.

Good points in the thread. I too found Jane’s flinch of recognition to be one of the more visceral moments in the show. Not only did she have a gun, at times she basically was one too. The actual gun never needed to go off for the show to be effective. And in that regard, some of the potential signposting/telegraphing bits went over my head on the who it might be front. Re the acting, it felt like a toss up between Woodley and Witherspoon. Kidman, I don't really have a sense of her acting overall to compare it with anything she's done before. Thought I heard a few flecks of her native accent creep into the 1:1 therapy scenes, but I wouldn't bother focusing on that criticism much. Her husband was an appalling, manipulative prick. What was happening to her character was as bad on a psychological level as it was physically. The show worked well here, denial is scarily all consuming at times.

Overall, very enjoyable. At the same time, like FouxDaFaFa, I do wonder if they might have missed a step with the tone - should it have gotten under my skin more somehow, Kidman in particular? Perhaps. And yes, I had to rewind once or twice - the daughter mumbled something about Wolf Blitzer the morning after the Amnesty/virginity thing blew up.

Second series - can't see anything to be gained from that, creatively. Now, did I even watch the trailer in the first instance, can't remember...

S.M.B.

S.M.B. wrote: »

There won't be. Looks like the team might reunite to adapt another book by the same author but doubt the 3 leads would be sharing the screen again if that's the case.

Hmmmmmm, looks like the cast are working on a second season.

Odd choice.

scrumqueen

NDWC wrote: »

Just finished watching this. The scenes between Skarsgård and Kidman were a highlight, edge of the seat stuff. Witherspoon was great also.

Overall a top quality series.

+1

Enjoyed this from start to finish. While I wish there was more of it, I feel if there was, it just wouldn't be as good.

Soundtrack was just fabulous too!