Crime Mystery Thriller Series On Max Gives Edge-Of-Your-Seat Thrills With Incredible Cast
It can be no surprise that Liane Moriarty and David E. Kelley created magic with Big Little Lies, now streaming on Max. With a wealth of excellent television programming under Kelley’s belt and a reputation for reliable dramedy novels for Moriarty, this miniseries adapted from the novel of the same name is nothing short of exceptional.
The Aftermath Of A Murder
Big Little Lies is located in Monterey, California, with beautiful cinematography, fantastic direction, and superb acting. The mood is darkly comedic with hints at heightened violence.
As the show opens, the audience witnesses the aftermath of a murder at a local elementary school, but we don’t know who the killer or the victim is. We then flash back to the first day of school and several moms dropping off their children.
The Cast
In those first few moments of the first episode of Big Little Lies, we meet Madeline Martha Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon), the type A, hyper-controlling alpha female and her good friend Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman), a soft-spoken, retired lawyer with twin sons.
Both women are dropping off their children for the first day of first grade when they befriend Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley), a young mother who is also dropping off her son. All three women run into Renata Klein (Laura Dern), a high-powered, wildly erratic wealthy woman, who accuses Jane’s son, Ziggy, of choking her daughter, Amabella.
Abuse
The depth of Big Little Lies begins to rear its ugly head almost immediately when we head home with Celeste and her twins to find that Celeste’s husband, Perry (Alexander Skarsgard) is both deeply loving and violently abusive toward Celeste when the twin boys are supposedly not around.
Celeste doesn’t tell anyone about the abuse because she’s ashamed. Meanwhile, Madeline is struggling to bond with her oldest daughter, Abigail (Kathryn Newton), who of course prefers to stay at her father’s house with his new wife, Bonnie (the lovely Zoe Kravitz).
Madeline loves her new husband, Ed (Adam Scott) and their daughter together, Chloe, but you also get the sense that she’s a bit restless in her life.
The Dark Side
The dramas of Big Little Lies unfold with each episode, from Jane’s issues with her ex and her strong desire to make a better life for Ziggy to Renata’s love/hate relationship with her husband. The women meet, chat, laugh, disagree, argue, and make up.
They are, at their heart, all basically good people, but they all also have a dark side that is peeled back in layers with each moment that goes by. And the whole time, you’re wondering who got killed, and who did the killing!
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GFR SCORE
Of course, the answers are all revealed at the end of the first season, and then, to everyone’s surprise and delight, we got a second season complete with Meryl Streep joining the cast. I can’t give away much about the second season without revealing the mysteries of the first, but suffice to say it’s worth watching, especially knowing there will be a third season around the corner.
We have Witherspoon’s production company, Hello Sunshine to thank for that. I give Big Little Lies 5 stars out of 5 and encourage you to watch it when you’re in the mood to get moody.
