Big Little Lies

Agatha Christie meets full frontal feminism. I don't know if I should take a look first at how well it's written, how exactly it's acted, or how exclusively it's filmed. There are a lot of series that work hard on feminism. This is feminist, without pirouettes and big words. A maze that on the one hand looks like a brilliantly built small-town tragicomedy, on the other like a purebred whodunnit detective story. God, do not punish me for guessing the solution in the third part. But the sound of Elvis still vibrated me. Love them all, those wicked moms. (03/04/2017)

I really enjoyed the series. Its biggest weakness is that it seems to lack energy until about the fifth episode. It’s not that the first four episodes are bad, I just felt like the story didn't really kick into full gear until Episode 5. After the first episode I was hesitating whether to continue watching, but I hung in there and I don't regret it. On the contrary. I even decided to get the book on which it was based so I could compare it with the show. (07/09/2017)

An apt satirical detached view of how caring for children has been replaced by obsession with children, trifling violent disputes in a small town and about what happens behind the closed doors of households when no one is watching (despite it is not so "scary", it is one of those chilling portrayals of domestic violence which will give you shivers). Rather than an adaptation, it is a literal illustration of the original, but it is so stimulating and packed with different themes (however on the leisure side of the spectrum) that, together with the excellent cast of parents and offspring is more than enough to keep you entertained. The only problem is the length. After all, just seven episodes showing four hundred pages is way to much. Not to mention that the original is already struggling with flogging a dead horse in the middle part. Surprisingly, in spite of all the literality, however, it has a rather sloppy ending compared to the original, where the story lines not only don´t have a proper ending but some of them in this version even make absolutely no sense. (10/03/2017)

I really wouldn’t want to live in a town like that. Even though it’s some community in California, at times I felt as if the story was taking place somewhere in Scandinavia. The mix of people in this story showed some crazy relationship tangles and during seven episodes told me a story that in an interesting way leads to murder. It doesn’t start with murder, but it ends with it. The problem with the show, however, was that it was taking a long time until it finally began, and I really spent about half of the show getting used to the characters, not saying that I got used to them at all. Nevertheless, Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Shailene Woodley showed performances that are truly out of this world, and the male part of the crew was pretty close behind. It is also nice that this story is about lying women and not men, so some feminists are gonna weep. It is interesting to see how far these mothers can go for the fundamentals of motherhood and preserving a family. There’s definitely something to it, but you won’t realize the true quality of the whole premise until the very end, so don’t hesitate and try to stick with the seven episodes as much as you can. It will be worth it. (07/04/2017)

When you've been on maternity leave longer than the biological clock approves, that shrunken world of baby diapers, dirty clothes, and runny noses may need to be stretched beyond the edge where good morals brush up against the paragraphs of the law. It’s a teasing probe into the loving embrace of all-powerful mothers, whose world we may not seem to understand, but in many ways we share with them. I wouldn't be fooled by the detective storyline, as even the less astute will soon figure out who deserves to die. Yet the gradual path to the inevitable end is interwoven with a fascinating web of seeming banalities, conversations eavesdropped on from life that form a fascinating whole. Vallée is an editing master, and all he has to do is look away for half a second at the right moment and he leads the viewer as if on a string. Perhaps this is girl power in a way we may not want to see it and yet we absolutely must. I’m looking forward to the next season. (30/11/2018)