Reese and Nicole and Laura and Audrey and Elvis: Thread for BIG LITTLE LIES on HBO

A lot of it was still boomer music though

A couple of things:

Had Perry and Jane met before the fundraiser (besides the rape, of course)? I cant remember.

Also I was partly convinced the whole time that ed was going to be the killer. Just with the staring at Madeleine's oldest daughter then the quick looks away and whatnot. Seemed like something was going on there.

Also: Ziggy ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Yeah I totally expected Ed to end up schtupping the stepdaughter, there were a lot of weird lingering looks & furtive glances between them

Don't think Perry and Jane met before the fundraiser

Has anyone read one of Liane Moriarty's books? Could def give one a go after this (I've read that it's a fairly literal adaptation)

Glad a thread was finally started for this series. I'd be lying if I said I didn't look forward to each episode of this more than anything else I've been watching for the last 2 months. Was really taking back with Kidman's performance.

i'm avoiding this thread but just saying I'M IN - feel sorry for nicole kidman's poor face, and for basically all the kids. really impressive how in just one episode they introduce reese witherspoon as this hateful hosebeast and by the end you just want to hug her and take her home. just finished ep 4 and i have an inchoate theory about the bullying but really no idea where this is all heading. excellent job sowing seeds of doubt and anxiety everyone, A+

my inchoate theory was OTM :)

The parade of Audreys in the intro is creepy. You have those cute kids dancing and then it goes to that. Some weird backlit outdoors thing. Nicole Kidman looks mannish, showing off her adam's apple. At the end it blurs out and cuts off Perry. I wonder if it was just something they put together in a hurry, or if it was carefully planned out.

i think it was all pretty planned out. i read they initially wrote the gala as happening inside, in a school gym, but changed it when they found that location (which is actually in LA)

the parade of audreys after the kids doing the same was amazing wtf

The credits end on the main character, cutting out before the bad guy - that seems purposeful surely?.

laura dern in partic was hypnotic in that sequence xp

holy heck this was good

man a-list actresses get so much shit for one reason or another and then you watch reese witherspoon and nicole kidman take a tv role and realize they're just light years beyond even a decent tv actor.

my takeaway is how much better roles for women are when the actresses are producers on their own shit and/or collaborate with each other to make great content

both last posts otm

then you watch reese witherspoon and nicole kidman take a tv role and realize they're just light years beyond even a decent tv actor.

Kidman is reliably amazing basically all of the time but some of the best performances in any medium right now come courtesy of Leftovers and Americans actors

Great performances
I feel like I knew these characters almost too well though, like I got bored caring about Madeleine's problems (sorry Reese <3 u), maybe because I watched the whole thing in a few nights.
Great direction, little touches throughout
Less funny than I anticipated though and didn't shake the 'that kind of novel*' vibe.
Felt a bit like a beautiful distillation of mumsnet in a way. Enjoyed it enough though. My OH has been giving me the side-eye for recommending it though :/

*I don't know what you call this kind of novel, focusing on relationships/family/parenting/working mother/class issues - usually with big reveal at the end and someone innocent suffering for the good of others - but I don't think they're my thing, I usually guess the big reveal and get irritated by it. (I guessed one early on here, in part due to the extreme unlikeliness of certain roles acting in the ways depicted - and the other I found too pat.)

amazing to watch a series with a bone fide GOOD ENDING.

great performances. I don't have any preconceptions of Reece W but she's brilliantly, comically, subtle here. what a clever actress she is. kidman was a revelation. its just really great to watch excellent female characters and female actresses be basically the whole thing and the whole point but I agree with kinder there^ - we've had rich white women's stories a lot and i think it needed to breathe out a bit. or a lot.

Fucking great show, just finished. damn. Thought it started off real corny (the interstitials with the parents in the police station were really grating at first - also whoa, Todd Bridges)- but it went way further and into heavier terrain than I was expecting. Everyone was great in it. And yeah the ending ruled. No second season please. It was great.

honestly, i feel that this show was amazingly thought out and structured, to the point where i think the early episodes purposefully cast all these people as the cardboard cutout stereotypes you're prepared to hate watch then slowly unfurls so much emotional and psychological depth.

Such a great observation, that is an excellent way of putting it. I watched it over 5 days, and as I watched the last couple episodes I thought about how much my perception of Reese's character especially had changed.

i think it's the only time i ever felt like a therapy session in a show or movie felt really authentic to me.

otm

GUYS!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/meryl-streep-star-big-little-lies-season-2-hbo-1064801

amazed this thread isn't all about the insane wig that nicole kidman wears in every scene.

So I just finished binge watching this and yeah it was pretty great. Not thrilled by the idea of a second season though as it was so satisfying as a whole, and because the director of S1 won't be helming it this time. But I guess the final shot of someone watching the women on the beach through binoculars was intended to set the scene for the second season (sorry for alliteration), even though they can't have known S2 was in the bag when they included that shot.

oh wait, that Vulture article explains that it was the policewoman watching them right at the end, because she suspects something's not quite right. I hadn't caught that.

I hope the second season isn't about them being re-trialled for what happened in the first. That way lies Broadchurch madness.

Also I don't know why but my head has confused elements of Big Little Lies and Logan Lucky. I guess they both have open-endings with strangely prescient detectives going "hmmmmmm..."

I loved this but is it too late to talk about how bad the high school internet sex plot was

i loved this too but i am starting to be tire of the thrilling, televised escapades of the extremely rich (cf McMafia)

oh man that show is really bad compared to BLL

personally i dug the luxury porn and felt like the characters had some resemblance to people i knew, in spirit if not in wealth

also i used to live near monterey so it's beautiful nostalgia (although i guess mostly filmed in southern california?)

i'm perpetually behind the times but i just watched all of this over the last few days. nicole kidman is just fantastic. i cried my guts out. the therapy scenes (especially the first session in episode 3) were so good that i said "this is some of the best television i have ever seen" out loud as i was watching it. i too am getting sick of extremely wealthy families and neighborhoods being the setting for so many creative works, and i'll spare everyone reading this my trite feelings on that because they've already been expressed upthread and it's a problem that many shows have, not just this one.

episode 3, though. that one just blew my mind. and somehow in the midst of all that wrenching turmoil rising to the surface, it was the "dreams" sequence in the van that tore me up more than anything. what a wonderful show.

wow people really love this show. i thought it was just all right! potentially i just really dislike the director

also, when laura dern is one of the leads and she's not the first person you think of in terms of standout performances (and she was so good! god, that part where she throws the phone in the pool and then raises her hand up to signal to her partner that she's ok...she can do no wrong), you know you are in the presence of a ridiculously good ensemble

the therapy scenes (especially the first session in episode 3) were so good that i said "this is some of the best television i have ever seen" out loud as i was watching it

otm this scene was absolutely extraordinary

i may be a total weirdo but if the entire show was just 7 hours straight of those therapy scenes i'd still be happy. i'm not sure if anyone's mentioned how good the therapist is but she goes toe-to-toe with kidman, which is saying a hell of a lot.

https://www.thecut.com/2017/03/real-life-therapists-love-the-big-little-lies-therapist.html

I think the fact that this wasn't all just about rich people problems helped alleviate a lot of the issues I might've otherwise had with the setting. It's mostly a very human story that could've been dropped into a different setting without losing a whole lot.

i'll stop serially posting, but it's interesting that those counseling scenes weren't in the book the show is based off of - http://www.vulture.com/2017/03/big-little-lies-robin-weigert-therapy.html

Oh, that's so strange. But, yes, Robin Weigart is truly great (as anyone who's seen Deadwood can attest).

yeah the actress that played the therapist was fantastic. just saw her in a sorta shitty movie last week in a very small role

i may be a total weirdo but if the entire show was just 7 hours straight of those therapy scenes i'd still be happy

did you ever watch In Treatment?

In Treatment was so fucking creepy and not in a good way.

my mom loved that show but i could never imagine watching it, i get enough out of my own therapy

yeah I only watched the first season and it was years ago...I had actually forgotten about the plot which I think you're referring to as creepy.
It's too bad though, as BLL shows, it's an interesting dramatic situation that so often rings totally false when I see it dramatized.

Dr Melfi obviously the prime example of how it should be done.

A friend I wouldn't expect to said he watched this, so I picked up a bootleg on the weekend. Of course the thing that caught my attention in the first episode was Babe Ruth. I'd never heard Babe Ruth in my life, but as the tiny image of the album cover flashed by on the daughter's cell phone, I did a double-take--"Is that actually what I think it is?" (I was familiar with the album cover)--and backed up. At which point I guessed correctly that that was also what I was hearing. Bizarre. A little far-fetched, maybe, but interesting.

Couple of episodes to go--fascinating, especially (what else) the music. I just read the second season will be directed by Andrea Arnold...excellent. And Meryl Streep will be added...not sure what to say there--could be good.

So, season 2...?

First ep was fine, pretty much in line with what came before. Streep bringin' some quality pass agg into the mix.

I enjoyed the first one a lot - cast were amazing - but I sort of file it with bloodline, stranger things, that recent one that was a bit like this and had a title almost as bad as big little lies: decent shows that really, intensely do not need a sequel. I sort of feel like if tv really is where it’s meant to be at we can be as sceptical of these things having second series as we would be of like phantom thread 2 or 2nd reformed

(sort of)

Yeah! Obviously Streep was conniving and awful re: her son, but it's not like there wasn't cause for concern, from the pills to the slapping. (I haven't seen the show since it aired--did any character express more than a passing concern about all that? I mostly recall Witherspoon treating it like not that big of a deal.)

i thought i had no interest in this show (rich white people, parenting, women who snipe at each other) but i actually really thought it was good! i thought S2 gave Bonnie a lot more depth and her moments of intrusive memories were very realistic. I also identified with her aimlessly walking through the woods looking dour.

and lil Ziggy <3 i figured whoever wrote the screenplay (and maybe the original author) had read Far From the Tree, where there is a long and difficult-to-read chapter about children of rape.

anyway, i enjoyed both seasons in spite of my original misgivings. the theme song grew on me too.

Great show

I find madeline very sympathetic, despite her flaws. Still in the middle of season 1.

I loved this series, both seasons, it wasn't perfect but in the end I wish I could find other tv shows that would mean as much to me

i can’t believe i watched THE UNDOING in full