I’m moving to Monterey, California. Mallory has found me a 543 sqft apartment for $439,000 and quite frankly I think it’s a STEAL. Who’s coming with me?? The star of the show was not Nicole Kidman or Reese Witherspoon or Laura Dern or Shailene Woodley or my future wife Zoe Kravitz or the soundtrack. The star of Big Little Lies is THE HOMES. My gosh, I could live in any one of them. The location scouts and production design perfectly matched each character to her respective home. Nicole’s was dark, bruise-y in color, sexy, and fragile, Reese’s (my personal fave) composed, sturdy, standing high above the ocean, Laura’s both modern and exposed, Shailene’s humble, practical, and modest, Zoe’s a removed zen garden of jewelry-making bohemia and laissez faire attitude, every one awash in a hazy blue Instagram filter.
Big Little Lies is based on a novel about privileged soccer mom drama taking place in a small community’s elementary school where parents are overly excited to greet their children at pick-up. Seriously though, has anyone else noticed that?? No one is THAT excited for their kids to get home from school. (I’m referring to a specific moment where it’s slow mo and everyone’s embracing their kid like they’ve just come home from war. Are they simply putting on airs? They must be.) The series is shown as an entire flashback, leading up to a dramatic murder of who - you don’t know - until the last ten minutes of the season. We see talking heads of various townspeople spilling the tea about the main ladies to detectives. Turns out, everyone has motive against someone else. The relationships are as rocky as the scenery. The personalities are as big as the SUVs. Oh, and there’s a lot of staring at the ocean. A LOT. The kids endure typical conflict, including bullying, biting etc, but mostly their issues serve as a way for the parents to project their own battles onto the schoolyard… It reminds me of how when you have kids you get to avoid talking to other parents by just talking through your child. “Jimmy, tell Sarah you’re sorry…and her mom’s a jerk.” “Sarah, tell Jimmy apology not accepted and HIS MOM CAN SHOVE IT.” It’s not totally like that, but it reminds me of it. All y’all with kids know EXACTLY what I’m talking about.
It took me a few episodes to get into it. After the pilot I was disturbed by the kid-on-kid violence, (my least favorite theme of all time,) but I timidly peeked through my hands to indulge in the cat fights. To be honest, like a strong undertow, the homes DREW ME BACK IN. The show is certainly soapy, but it does pass the Bechdel test, albeit ironically at times. You know what else passes the Bechdel test? “OMG Becky, look at her butt.” So. Big Little Lies highlights aspects of female friendship you rarely see on television. These women are supportive, strong, vocal, and friendly - when they want to be. They can be backstabby and vindictive, but, I find that to be an accurate representation of women. Reese’s character is the type of girlfriend I need to have - she has something I lack, courage to confront. All privilege, qualms, and social commentary aside, the women manage to come together in the end. AWWWWW.
HERE IS YOUR SPOILER WARNING. I’mma get into this piece.
Nicole Kidman and Alexander Skarsgard play out an extremely volatile, heated, deep, sexy, intricate relationship full of physical abuse. When we typically see abuse in film and TV it’s very one-note, lacking depth and complexity. It’s as simple as he beats her = he’s evil. Big Little Lies dives into what I imagine is a lot of people’s reality in the situation, it’s quite messy and…complicated. The scenes are hard to watch and surely harder to portray. I just read how traumatic the whole experience was for the actors, and it’s like….YA. WE CAN SEE THAT. To view that level of intensity and consistency with abuse on screen is something I’ve never witnessed. It’s horrifying. The big problem the characters have is that their abuse is tightly wound into their passion. It confuses them and the viewer to have so much sexual pleasure derived from their power struggle and pain. It’s an extremely enthralling storyline, as hard as it is to see. (Alexander Skarsgard was serving some sort of visual resemblance to my husband so imagine MY confusion??) If you asked anyone who’s seen the show, it had us feeling some sort of way. Celeste (Nicole) makes a painfully compelling argument that her husband is a wonderful provider and the best father in the world, and as far as we can see, he is. It was suggested to me I’m more conflicted on the issue possibly because I too have children. This is probably true. I’m not saying I’d stay, hell-to-the-no, it’s just that, I can sort of hear her reasoning. You feel?? She’s convinced herself of these things to excuse his behavior and allow herself to go on with her situation. Watching their problem get unravelled with the aid of a therapist makes for intoxicating TV and standout performances.
Regarding the ending, I felt sort of befuddled by the culprit. We could all see the other stuff coming, and I like that the tension between Bonnie and Ed was left untouched, but I was a bit let down by the way it unfolded. After some light researching (i.e.; comment reading,) I learned that Bonnie had actual motive in the book. She explains that she saw her father abuse her mother growing up. I think that information would have been helpful in concluding the show. It didn’t need to be hinted at, they wouldn’t even have to write a line about it, personally I would do one of those silent flashback shots of Bonnie's traumatic memory in the last sixty seconds of the show as she stares off into the sea with her gorgeous jawline…
If they try a second season so help me. Everything’s been said, the story is wrapped into a big little bow, and any attempt to exploit the magic of the cast and success of the show will fail miserably in its lack of further story. What was needed to be said was said. Let’s leave it at that.
Big Little Lies airs on various HBO outlets.
