The first three episodes of the new series Nine Perfect Strangers, based on the novel by Liane Moriarty, are available on Hulu, with subsequent episodes coming one at a time in the weeks to follow. It follows nine carefully selected people, looking to reset some aspect of their lives at the mysterious Tranquillum House. It’s easy to draw comparisons to the recently concluded show The White Lotus, and while there are stark differences, it does share one often maligned element: it’s slow to develop.
Writer and Executive Producer David E. Kelley knows what he’s doing, having brought a myriad of different projects to the screen over the years, including Moriarty’s Big Little Lies for HBO. The decision to release three episodes to start makes a lot of sense for this series because it takes until that point to get a handle on who these people are. With all the streaming options available, you likely lose people if they have to wait that long to get anything beyond exposition. It’s an effective exposition, though. The director, Jonathan Levine, captures gorgeous architecture and landscapes, and the talent of this ensemble cast makes the characters interesting through their performances, even if their respective traumas and resulting issues are a bit predictable.
While they might check a lot of stereotypical boxes of people attending a wellness retreat — grief, addiction, marital problems — they are all far more eccentric than anyone found in The White Lotus not played by Jennifer Coolidge. Though everyone has a layer of mystery to them, they are played with varying ranges of subtlety. Playing into the peculiarities of a few of the core characters is a way to keep people involved before the real story begins to develop.
The most mysterious of the cast is of course the director of the resort, Masha (Nicole Kidman, Big Little Lies), a sort of spiritual guide. She seems to float about the property, limiting most of her interactions to individual counseling sessions, but carefully observing from hidden cameras. She directs her small staff led by Yao (Manny Jacinto, The Good Place) and Delilah (Tiffany Boone, Little Fires Everywhere), who seems to believe in what she does, but are a bit on edge with this particularly volatile group. Kidman plays aloof well, spending her time early on unnerving everyone with a sort of hostile zen and an eerie smile, but she clearly has secret motivations.
The early standout is, not surprisingly, Knives Out’s Michael Shannon as Napoleon Marconi. He and his wife Heather (Asher Keddie, Offspring) along with their daughter Zoe (Grace Van Patten, The Meyerowitz Stories), have come to Tranquillum still mourning the loss of their son. Napoleon is one of those people that seems to talk for fear of silence, and no matter how upbeat they appear, you know they are lying to themselves as much as anyone. Shannon is one of those actors that “always understands the assignment,” as people say, and he is fascinating in this role.
Sharing the bulk of the focus along with Napoleon through the first 3 episodes are Frances (Melissa McCarthy, Ghostbusters), a writer struggling with that and a host of other things, and Tony (Bobby Cannavale, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) a man battling addiction. Their introduction gets off to a fairly comical start, as Tony seems to lack any sort of filter, and their developing love-hate friendship provides most of the levity found in the series.
The remaining participants are Lars (Luke Evans, Furious 6), a man with an agenda, as well as a fondness for pushing everyone’s buttons, Carmel (Regina Hall, Support the Girls) who seems meek and harmless until she doesn’t, and then Ben (Melvin Gregg, Snowfall) and Jessica Chandler (Samara Weaving, Ready or Not), a couple trying to breathe some life back into their marriage. Everyone has entertaining elements to them, but with an ensemble cast of this size, and so much to unravel by the end of the limited series, some of their stories are likely to take a backseat to others.
With everyone but the Marconi family, who got a discounted rate, being affluent, Nine Perfect Strangers could be setting itself up as another character study on privilege, but things seem to be headed in a different direction. There is enough intrigue and tension mounting to hook viewers in, and hopefully all the time spent on sometimes-forgotten character development will lead to satisfying outcomes. If nothing else with the story materializes effectively, the series will still have its phenomenal cast to lean on.
Nine Perfect Strangers is now streaming on Hulu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvqujH6boEI
