Big Little Lies

In short, Big Little Lies is as glossy and superficially well-packaged as the very community it aims to skewer but ultimately guilty of the same corrosive emptiness. Though highly bingeable and at times bitingly funny, the series is also patently ridiculous and riddled with pernicious stereotypes of henpecked husbands and scheming mean-girl mothers who use their children as pawns.

Artful edits and an expertly curated soundtrack class the joint up a bit, but when Woodley and Dern go toe-to-toe, the only thing preventing things from going full-on Dynasty is the lack of an adjacent fountain.

Too bad its uptightness gets in the way of its potential for pleasure--even that of the guilty variety.

Just because it’s well-acted doesn’t mean Big Little Lies is worth enduring.

Turning the mystery into such a complete MacGuffin as a way to foreground the domestic drama might make sense if that drama were, say, interesting. But the real problem with Big Little Lies is that the women’s stories, however well acted and artfully photographed, are just a compendium of clichés about upper-middle-class angst.

The show plateaus as we wait to find who got killed and how, but it has its moments, mostly when Kelley teeters toward the comic side of his unsteady walk on that tightrope.