“Big Little Lies” easily could have been a big disappointment — another series built around big-name stars that, despite its origins in a popular book, echoed themes from several similar shows and TV clichés pulling back the curtain on small-town life.
The miniseries that concludes this weekend, however, has proved inordinately satisfying, offering wonderfully meaty roles for its female stars and taking on a life of its own beyond the central “Who wound up dead?” mystery.
Give ample credit to writer David E. Kelley — delivering his best work for television in years — and director Jean-Marc Vallee, who not only brought Liane Moriarty’s book to life but also seamlessly transplanted it from Australia to California’s Monterey.
Amid the talk about a dearth of quality roles for actresses in movies, the project also reflects a case of stars taking control of their own destiny, with Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman optioning the book and championing the project, which showcased them and their co-stars in extremely flattering ways.
Far from another catfight or pay-TV version of “Desperate Housewives,” “Big Little Lies” yielded rich, complicated characters that managed to avoid the customary stereotypes.
In a Vulture interview, Kidman accurately noted the story “could have had a very, very different approach,” in ways that would have been less resonant emotionally.
Yes, Witherspoon’s Madeline was chafing at her ex-husband’s marriage to a much-younger woman (Zoe Kravitz), but she also displayed her unhappiness by cheating on her current husband. Kidman’s Celeste seemed to have it all with her handsome younger spouse (Alexander Skarsgard), but all the hot sex masked an escalating level of abuse and physical violence that she only grudgingly began to acknowledge.
On a secondary level, there were the parents’ apprehensions regarding their children — and specifically, the plight of single-mother Jane (Shailene Woodley), uncomfortably forced to contemplate the issue of nature versus nurture. Was it possible that her young son, accused of bullying a female classmate, was some kind of “bad seed” — somehow inheriting antisocial tendencies from the man who raped and impregnated her?
Having seen the finale, “Big Little Lies” pays off its various threads splendidly, joining two previous HBO miniseries — “The Night Of” and the first season of “True Detective” — as a tight, self-contained narrative.
If networks are truly committed to this format, they would be doing themselves a service by not trying to transform every one that works into a franchise. Starting over from scratch is always riskier, but nobody needs a “Bigger Littler Lies.”
“Big Little Lies” isn’t the first series devoted to secrets in an outwardly idyllic small town, and it surely won’t be the last. Yet far from feeling too big or little, this seven-episode run, on most every level, turned out to have been just right.
“Big Little Lies” concludes April 2 at 9 p.m. on HBO. Like CNN, HBO is a division of Time Warner.