“Big Little Lies” begins with a murder. But the show is a far cry from a crime show or standard murder mystery. Similarly to “The Affair” and “True Detective,” the series premiere features a murder and police interviews before backtracking to the events leading up to the mysterious death. We know someone’s been killed but don’t know who the victim or the perpetrator is. This should feel at least a tad reductive in format, we’ve seen this plot device before. Yet in “Big Little Lies” the kiling, which in other shows would be the driving force, somehow takes a backseat, and that’s exactly what makes it so good.
A-listers Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Zoe Kravitz star in this HBO miniseries, giving award-worthy performances as mothers of first-graders in the California coastal city of Monterey. Each woman is fully fledged and complex in a way audiences don’t see nearly enough. They’re imperfect, simultaneously strong and fragile and capable of both intense anger and love. In addition to the murder that sparks our story, the show tackles difficult and important storylines as sexual assault and spousal abuse, and does so quite well. However, the show also balances these huge topics with small moments masterfully and in a way few others have.
This is a show that focuses in (almost obsessively so) on the little, mundane details of familial life, showcasing the fierce love, and occasional pettiness, of these women. We learn about their daughters’ taste in music, their desire to go back to work and their sex lives (satisfying or unsatisfying). Just as much gravity is given to the risk of a little girl’s birthday party being ruined thanks to the feud brewing between Dern and Witherspoon’s characters as anything else on the show. The show’s tone is hard to decipher as it veers between black comedy at times and intense drama, but it never feels wrong. It feels authentic.
Watching the series I found myself just as intrigued and curious about the murder as whether or not Woodley’s character’s son Ziggy is bullying Dern’s daughter Annabella. And despite one’s better judgement, you can’t help but be fully invested in the future of the community theatre production of “Avenue Q” Witherspoon’s Madeline is planning. It’s these tiny details, not necessarily major plot points by any means, that make the show so watchable. These, not a flashy murder mystery, make the characters seem real and worth rooting for.
