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Carmel (Regina Hall) is a woman on the edge, straying very close to a “crazy black woman” trope. Samara Weaving gives a particularly beautiful, brittle performance as a sweet rich girl whose Instagram-perfect exterior hides extreme distress. Lars (Luke Evans) is a prickly control freak with a hidden agenda. Their daughter Zoe (Grace Van Patten) celebrates her 21st birthday, supported by the guests but haunted by the death of her twin brother. Grieving mother Heather (Asher Keddie) swings from depression to dreamy elation, as her husband Napoleon (Michael Shannon) loses grip of his happy-go-lucky exterior and succumbs to his pain. Photo: Amazon Primeīestselling author Frances (Melissa McCarthy) is a bundle of shame and self-recrimination who strikes up an alliance with Tony (Bobby Cannavale), an abrasive burnout. The show cares about its characters, even as it puts them through the wringer. Editing ably charts emerging alliances, catching fleeting glances and moments of candour.Īlthough the show is set in the US, the Australian location - which is rich with bamboo, bird of paradise flowers and banyan trees - gives a sense we are somewhere outside of the “real” world. Images start to distort, colours intensify, and the camera roams woozily. Director Jonathan Levine offers luscious close-up sequences of fruit being macerated and blitzed for daily smoothies, capturing a dual sense of sensuality and latent threat. The show’s aesthetic heightens as the doors of perception open. There’s an uncomfortable sense that the over-priced, therapeutic model which distils trauma into bon mots, timetabling catharsis and manipulating its subjects, might not be a bad thing. Instead, as the show progresses, each desperate character embraces the process and addresses their damage. Tranquillum offers the sort of bougie, self-indulgent therapeutic experience only the navel-gazing, super-rich can buy.īut this initial satirical impulse is just a hook there’s little critique present. Nine Perfect Strangers opens with overt suspicion of the commodification of wellness, present in both the (well-founded!) concerns of the characters and the framing of the retreat itself. They are ultimately secondary to a very traditional character dramedy that wants to have things both ways. These narrative lines provide a sense of mounting suspense, but the series’ mysteries are really window dressing. Masha: Galadriel by way of Gwyneth Paltrow. It is nearly impossible to trust or read her. She’s intense and willowy, Galadriel by way of Gwyneth Paltrow. Suspense, and dramedyĪs in producer David E Kelley’s other collaborations with Kidman, Big Little Lies (2017-19) and The Undoing (2020), the camera frequently lingers on Kidman’s uncanny face, emphasising moments of emotional intensity. She’s also being threatened Tranquillum is not so safe. We know there has been tragedy at the retreat before, but for her, the promise of nine cathartic breakthroughs – nine changed lives – justifies the ethically dubious and probably illegal means. She brings the same ruthlessness to her role as wellness guru as she did her prior life as a CEO, before a life-altering experience took her from boardroom to yoga studio.Īs she ups her surveillance of the guests and her idiosyncratic therapeutic “protocols”, her motivations and sense of ethics are opaque. Behind the scenes, conflicts are getting out of hand. Tranquillum’s invasive techniques are barely masked by the soft voices and benign smiles of the staff. By halfway through the season, bets are on as to who is going to completely lose it, and how much damage they are going to do.Īs the dreamy, psychedelic title sequence suggests, Masha’s version of therapeutic practice may be a little less conventional than the guests have anticipated. As Masha and the staff gleefully tell one another, the group is volatile. Nine people - a grieving family, a couple on the rocks, and four individuals in crisis - have signed up for a 10-day plunge into self-actualisation. Adapted from Liane Moriarty’s 2018 novel, it takes place at a secretive, high-end wellness retreat called Tranquillum, an on-trend Scandi dream of bare light wood and open spaces overseen by a mysterious Russian woman, Masha (Nicole Kidman). Nine Perfect Strangers is a polished take on wellness culture that is less “eat the rich” than “pass the Kool-Aid”. This review contains minor spoilers for the first six episodes of Nine Perfect Strangers.
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