I alluded to noticing this after finally watching Wild and finally got around to watching it … holy shit Big Little Lies is good. No, it’s goddamn great.
The star heavy cast, the story, the direction. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen black comedy with sharper teeth. It cuts to the bone… and keeps going.
Highly recommended. And not just because my girlfriend Nicole Kidman is exec producer, or that it is set in nearby Monterey, CA to excellent effect.
However, director and executive producer Jean-Marc Vallée doesn’t think there should be a second season.
Agreed. But not for lack of anything in these 7 episodes.
I’ve heard great things about this on the /Filmcast, and have added it to my backlog!
Overall it’s the most absorbing show I’ve seen in months. Not sure how I feel about the storyline in the end, but the cast is fantastic and moment-to-moment it’s just super entertaining. Best thing Reese Witherspoon has done in ages.
I guess I’ll be the lone dissenter. Just finished binging this last night and in the end I thought it was an interesting story but a really stupid mystery. And they lean so heavily into that by interviewing every single sideline nobody with dogshit Modern Family bad interjections, sometimes barely a sentence that added nothing to anything. And some of the stuff they were talking about would have no place in an inquiry into what happened. When one of the sideline characters finally says “what’s with all the questions anyway?” I was wondering the same thing. The tease was so heavy handed and poorly done that it constantly distracted from a fairly bland but mostly well-executed story.
And by episode 4, I had a hard time taking Alexander “Why Didn’t We Discuss This” Skarsgard seriously. Every time he showed up on screen, my wife and I would guess what the time to “Discuss This” would be, then what the time to punching would be, then the time to fucking. We also guessed the quasi twist involving Shailene Woodley in the first or second episode. Maybe it was meant to be obvious the whole time, but that made her story line go basically no where.
I enjoyed Goliath more of the recent David E Kelley shows. Both were goofy but I had more fun with Goliath.
Golden Globes wins
Big Little Lies, HBO’s miniseries starring Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Nicole Kidman and Shailene Woodley, won Best Limited Series. Big Little Lies also won a similar award during the 2017 Emmy Awards. Alexander Skarsgård won the award for Best Supporting Actor in a TV Drama, beating out Stranger Things’ David Harbour.
Just finished season 1, and it is really good. I would agree with the whole interview interludes and police stuff feels really tacked on and a bit jarring tonally. I think that it needs to be there as the pervasive nature of gossip and the parents is big theme of the show, but the interview cut away style is a little bit much.
Otherwise great acting, powerhouse cast, moving and important story. With a legitimate heartwrenching finale. Very good, with a few nitpick.
The biggest one being that there is no world where 6 year olds not only request 60s and 70s R&B deep cuts but have the lyrics and dances memorized.
Overall the music in the show is good, but it also pushes against the realism of the show. Like, those kids would be blasting let it go and baby shark, not that Temptations B-side a 50 year old music director for a TV show thinks is cool.
FWIW, the book was awesome too, though the sh*t she puts her (main) protagonist through is really painful.
My wife read the book before we watched the show, and said it was excellent, as was the show.
Is a third season confirmed?
Was the second season worth watching?
So, finally watched this (s1 only) , and the character focus was very different from the book. The book focuses far more on Jane, and not as much on Madeline and Celeste (some of their reveals from episode one don’t really crop up on the book until about 2/3 in), which makes the police interview scenes far more relevant). However, Kidman and Witherspoon are so good that the show is really good.
Will probably try to binge s2 before the free HBO streaming ends April 30th.
Watched the first 2 episodes of s2 last night. They did bring the author in to work on story and some writing apparently. They, uh, also amped up the acting wattage, adding Meryl Streep to the cast.
So far, this season seems more like the book in terms of the WTF now? stressors on the characters, with no future flashback sequences yet.
OMG watched all of season one in one night --then season two tonight (almost all).
The acting and high powered acting in incredible. (I didn’t look at the above thread at all so i don’t know what the consensus is but my law clerk tells me there were grammys all around)
My hatred of Nichole Kidman’s violent husband and how it squeeks into season 2 – is so almost real… and meryl streeps performance as “mom” … god… she is still incredible.
Btw this is excellent stuff from really good people. Kravitz is great as well and Laura Dern? she is amazing in this second season. No spoilers!
Who would have thought I’d go from Reese Witherspoons dui in georgia (“Do you who I am?”) to actually LIKING her character.
Yes. It is. And I only added “it is” because it has to be more than 5 characters.