On the surface, HBO’s limited series “Big Little Lies” looks like nothing more than a riff on the Mommy Wars a la any franchise with the words “Housewives” in it, built around a deliberately opaque murder mystery (Showtime’s “The Affair”) and given a high-gloss veneer provided by the A-list cast and the dreamy trappings of this moneyed stretch of California coast.
But, as Reese Witherspoon’s Madeline tells her young daughter as they gaze out at the roiling Pacific, who knows what lies out there beneath the surface? To which her daughter answers, perhaps a bit too aptly, “Monsters?”
The mothers of Monterey can be monstrous, tamping anxieties about their life choices by doubling down on them, the high-powered working moms jockeying for power at the local public school with the full-time (with nanny) moms, using children’s birthday parties at battlefields and Instagram and Facebook as weapons.
But Witherspoon, as the tightly-wound, easily-affronted Madeline, nostrils perpetually aflare, and Nicole Kidman as the damaged Celeste, trapped in an abusive marriage, quickly rise above caricature. “Big Little Lies” is a soapy satire of privilege, but it is also a deeply-felt domestic drama about the simmering grudges, festering wounds and tactical compromises of messy modern marriages.
Told in flashback via a police investigation when someone turns up dead at a charity fundraiser, “Big Little Lies” opens with Madeline’s championing of young and struggling single mom Jane (Shailene Woodley) on their kids’ first day of first grade. Jane is a newcomer to town with a mysterious past whose son is soon accused of attacking the daughter of hard-charging executive Renata Klein (Laura Dern). “Not that there’s a right little girl to strangle,” one of the other moms tells a detective later, “but he picked the wrong little girl to strangle.”
That sets off a war that will entangle all the women, and their husbands, too, including Celeste’s controlling mate Perry (Alexander Skarsgard), Madeline’s irresponsible first husband Nathan (James Tupper), now happily married to the much younger and far more carefree Bonnie (Zoe Kravitz), and Madeline’s current husband, the seemingly milquetoast-y Ed (Adam Scott). But as another mom ominously warns, “Scratch the surface of Jimmy Stewart … Charles Manson.”
Juicy observations like those, from the chorus of drama-mainlining moms, neighbors, teachers and administrators, sometimes throws off the balance of the “Big Little Lies.” And so do the arty but unnecessary flashes of scenes from other moments in the timeline. The basic structure is compelling enough — viewers don’t even know who the identity of the murder victim is through much of the series, and the layered performances keep us in flux over who we’d like to kill off, and who we wish would do the killing. It keeps the stakes high and the plot churning like the ever-present Pacific.
Grade: B+
“Big Little Lies” debuts Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO.
Vicki Hyman may be reached at vhyman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickihy or like her on Facebook. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook, and check out Remote Possibilities, the TV podcast from Vicki Hyman and co-host Erin Medley on iTunes, Stitcher or Spreaker, or listen below or here.
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