--- title: "Big Little Lies" year: 2017 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/big-little-lies" fi1m_score: 78 critics_score: 72 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-17T13:11:07.806845+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T13:11:34.052174+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Big Little Lies (2017) Created by David E. Kelley · MPA TV-MA · Drama **Fi1m score: 78** · Critics 72 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* Five very rich women, one very cold ocean, and a husband you will want to turn the sound down for > David E. Kelley’s adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s novel is a soap in a good coat, and the coat is superb: Vallée’s cutting, Kidman’s marriage, Witherspoon’s mouth. The murder frame is a tease it barely needs, and the second series never quite finds a reason to exist. ## Synopsis Monterey, California, in the weeks after the autumn term begins. Madeline Mackenzie (Reese Witherspoon), a mother of two with a second husband, Ed (Adam Scott), and a first one, Nathan (James Tupper), living across town with his new wife Bonnie (Zoë Kravitz), befriends a newcomer on the first day of school. Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley) is a young single mother renting a small house with her son Ziggy (Iain Armitage). At orientation, Renata Klein (Laura Dern) accuses Ziggy of hurting her daughter, and the school splits into camps. Madeline’s closest friend, Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman), a lawyer who gave up work for her twins, lives in a glass house above the sea with her husband Perry (Alexander Skarsgård). Meanwhile, parents are being interviewed by police about a death at the school fundraiser. ## Review David E. Kelley has adapted Liane Moriarty’s novel into seven episodes about five mothers in Monterey, California, whose children have just started at the same school, one of whom will be standing near a body at the end of term. It is a soap, filmed and cut like a serious drama, and mostly it earns the disguise. It is about what women say to each other in car parks and what husbands do when the door is shut. Reese Witherspoon’s Madeline Mackenzie is the engine, a woman who has never lost an argument she could hear, marching through the school gates with a grievance ready. Nicole Kidman’s Celeste Wright is her opposite, a former lawyer in cream and camel in a glass house on the cliff with Alexander Skarsgård’s Perry and their twin boys. Shailene Woodley’s Jane Chapman is the outsider, renting, watchful, protective of her son Ziggy (Iain Armitage). Laura Dern’s Renata Klein treats the school as a board she has not yet taken over. Zoë Kravitz’s Bonnie, married to Madeline’s first husband Nathan (James Tupper), forgives everyone, which Madeline finds unforgivable. Jean-Marc Vallée directs the first series and edits alongside Justin Lachance, Véronique Barbe, David Berman, Sylvain Lebel and Maxime Lahaie, and the cutting is the style. A conversation over coffee is broken by two seconds of surf hitting rock, a child’s face, a hand on a doorframe. The other parents, who gossip to the police about the five women as if they were a football team, are cut in as a chorus. For three episodes the device is funny and useful; by the sixth it is a habit the series cannot break. The scenes between Kidman and Skarsgård are where the series stops being a soap. Perry is charming at breakfast and something else in the bedroom, and the series shows both with the same steady camera and no music to tell us how to feel. We watched with our shoulders up, unsure whether Celeste would name what was happening to her, because Kidman plays a woman who has built a legal argument in her head for why it is not what it looks like. Skarsgård is good enough that we understood why she wanted the argument to hold. It is the best work here and the reason to see it. John Paino’s production design tells you the money before anyone speaks: Celeste’s house is glass and grey stone and the sea, Renata’s is a fortress with a view, Jane’s rented cottage has a kitchen you could cross in two steps. Alix Friedberg dresses the women so that you could pick out their tax bracket from across a playground. No composer is credited and the series does not miss one; the songs are chosen on screen by the characters and their children. The flaws are Kelley’s. His dialogue has a way of saying the theme out loud, and Dern’s Renata is written as a cartoon for several episodes before the series lets her be a person; Dern makes the turn look easy, but it should not have taken so long. Adam Scott’s Ed exists to be decent, and Woodley’s backstory is parcelled out so carefully we grew impatient with it. Most critics have been warmer than we are about the mystery frame. It is the weakest thing here, a whodunit promised to viewers who came for the marriage. The second series, directed by Andrea Arnold, adds Meryl Streep as Mary Louise Wright, Celeste’s mother-in-law, who moves in and asks questions in the tone of a woman who has already decided the answers. She screams at a dinner table and the table does not know where to look; neither did we, and we enjoyed it. Around her, the series has finished its story and is reluctant to admit it; the plot circles for seven episodes looking for somewhere to land. See the first series for Kidman. Treat the second as a long dinner with people you like, at which Streep has been seated next to the one person she should not have been. It carries a 15, and the certificate is not for the language. *Fi1m score 78, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like it, and the praise falls in two places. The first is the cast: Witherspoon and Kidman are named again and again, with the wider ensemble credited for giving depth to women who could have been types. The second is Jean-Marc Vallée’s direction, which several reviews say takes a soapy premise about wealthy Monterey mothers judging one another’s parenting and makes it darker and more serious than it needs to be. The murder mystery and the gossipy police interviews are treated as the hook rather than the point; what the reviews respond to is the friendship, the resentment and the violence underneath the money. The reservations are few and mostly mild. Vulture finds the elliptical structure overused, trading suspense for surprise, and The Times admits the world on show is vacuous even while finding truth in it. The one clear dissent is The Hollywood Reporter, which calls the melodrama annoying, the confrontations contrived and the chorus of gossiping parents too much. Otherwise the spread is narrow. ### Reviews we read (8) - **Variety**, Sonia Saraiya (90/100, inferred): Vallée’s direction elevates the pulpy material into a satisfying exploration of wealthy suburban life, trauma, and gender dynamics, with strong performances from Witherspoon and Kidman. The mystery structure and character depth make the inevitable catastrophe watchable rather than a simple whodunit. [Read](https://variety.com/2017/tv/reviews/tv-review-big-little-lies-hbo-reese-witherspoon-nicole-kidman-jean-marc-vallee-1201979575/) - **Radio Times**, Kasia Delgado (8.4/10): The series initially appears to focus on bitter, rich women in an ultra-wealthy Californian seaside town who judge each other’s parenting, but ultimately celebrates female friendship amid horror. It frames the central murder mystery through gossipy police interviews with parents. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/programme/b-8teamn/big-little-lies/) - **The Guardian** (80/100, inferred): The critic praises this fabulous adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s bestseller as going beyond Desperate Housewives territory with a satisfying darkness. It highlights the power struggles, jealousies and underlying flaws among the wealthy Monterey mothers, building inexorably toward death. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/mar/14/big-little-lies-review-reese-witherspoon-nicole-kidman-someone-dead) - **Vulture**, Matt Zoller Seitz (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the series an addictive social satire and murder mystery with strong performances, especially from the lead actresses who bring depth to their characters. The elliptical storytelling prioritizes surprise over suspense and sometimes feels overused, but the acting makes it a must-see. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2017/02/tv-review-big-little-lies.html) - **The Times** (★★★★☆): The critic finds depth, class and humour in this glossy drama set in Monterey Bay despite its vacuous moneyed world, noting a truthful ring of quiet desperation beneath the lifestyle soap elements and strong performances. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/big-little-lies-meet-the-lords-5pm0jk8k8) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Tim Goodman (30/100, inferred): The soapy melodrama is more annoying than entertaining, relying on contrived confrontations, an over-the-top Greek chorus of gossipy parents, and a lack of subtlety or realism despite its marquee cast. It reduces to clichéd rich white people problems badly told. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/hbos-big-little-lies-review-972805/) - **Collider**, Allison Keene (★★★★): The critic finds the miniseries an easy and engrossing watch thanks to its A-list cast delivering strong performances and Jean-Marc Vallée’s sumptuous direction that creates a dreamlike yet nightmarish world. They single out the compelling exploration of consent, violence, and personal resentments beneath the surface satire of privileged lives. [Read](https://collider.com/big-little-lies-review/) - **The Ringer**, Alison Herman (70/100, inferred): The miniseries succeeds as pointed satire of West Coast wealth and the narcissism of small differences among the rich. It excels by exploring the petty infighting and insecurities of its female characters rather than relying on the murder-mystery hook. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2017/02/17/tv/big-little-lies-reese-witherspoon-shailene-woodley-ba913a85bf96) ## Details - **Created by:** David E. Kelley - **Creator:** David E. Kelley - **Director:** Jean-Marc Vallée, Andrea Arnold - **Writer:** T. Rafael Cimino, David E. Kelley - **Story:** David E. Kelley, Liane Moriarty - **Teleplay:** David E. Kelley - **Novel:** Liane Moriarty - **Editor:** David Berman, Jean-Marc Vallée, Sylvain Lebel, Maxime Lahaie, Justin Lachance, Véronique Barbe - **Production design:** John Paino - **Costume design:** Alix Friedberg - **Producer:** T. Rafael Cimino, Barbara A. Hall - **Cast:** Nicole Kidman as Celeste Wright; Reese Witherspoon as Madeline Mackenzie; Shailene Woodley as Jane Chapman; Laura Dern as Renata Klein; Alexander Skarsgård as Perry Wright; Adam Scott as Ed Mackenzie; James Tupper as Nathan Carlson; Zoë Kravitz as Bonnie Carlson - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 19 February 2017 - **Genres:** Drama - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XgMvMpvCFI ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming - Hulu: add-on, hd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Apple TV: buy, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $17.99, sd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IS, IT, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Sharp Objects* (2018), Fi1m 84: Vallée again, slower and darker, with Amy Adams drinking her way through a small-town case — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/sharp-objects.md) - *The Slap* (2011): One barbecue, one smacked child, and eight Australian episodes on how friends fall out - *Happy Valley* (2014): Sarah Lancashire’s police sergeant in Yorkshire; no gloss at all, and better for it - *Olive Kitteridge* (2014), Fi1m 84: Frances McDormand as a Maine schoolteacher nobody likes; quiet, bruising and funny — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/olive-kitteridge.md) - *Desperate Housewives* (2004): The cheerful ancestor: suburban wives, a narrating corpse, and a much lighter touch --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/big-little-lies