Big Little Lies: What the critics say about HBO's new drama

HBO's new mini-series Big Little Lies is a darkly satirical domestic noir, but its themes have gained an unexpected urgency.

Based on Liane Moriarty's bestselling novel of the same name, the seven-part black comedy explores the lives of three Californian mothers whose seemingly perfect lives begin to unravel under the weight of their lies and illusions.

It stars Nicole Kidman as Celeste, Reese Witherspoon as Madeline and Shailene Woodley as Jane and is a show about women who appear to have it all, says Elizabeth Day in the Daily Telegraph.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The privileged but troubled mums of Monterey have handsome, successful husbands and "white clapboard palaces with fire-pits and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the beach".

But what makes the show compelling is that "the truth behind closed doors is far darker" - there we find unhappy marriages, discontent, domestic abuse, bullying and even murder.

There's no such thing as a perfect life, says Day, and "pretending to be happy never ends well", as the characters in Big Little Lies show us.

Indeed, says Vox, what starts out as a "sudsy, delicious series about affluent women Mean Girls-ing" turns into "a weighty, aching, drama".

So much of Big Little Lies is about the characters' relationships, the critic adds. Everyone's keeping up a facade in Monterey and the show reveals how "they've bought into their own lies".

Big Little Lies is "nasty", says Rachel Cooke in the New Statesman. Imagine a "Desperate Housewives/Midsomer Murders smoothie – that's Big Little Lies", she writes.

The show's subjects are "female rivalry, competitive parenting, toxic marriage, bitter ­divorce and money, money, money".

Its tone was probably intended to be satirical, but Cooke speculates producers probably weren't predicting "the victory of a certain Republican candidate for the presidency".

What once may have seemed "wildly exaggerated, now appears to be almost understated", continues the critic.

This show is about people whose families have become "miniature corporations", whose friends are "status symbols" and who must be "eternally watchful, in possession of a self-interest that is fierce and immeasurable".

She adds: "I bet Ivanka Trump is glued to it, down in the White House screening room."

Big Little Lies airs on Sky Atlantic Mondays at 9pm.