- Network: Apple TV+
- Series Premiere Date: Jun 4, 2021
Critic Reviews
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It's a monumental bore. ... Meanwhile, in absence of plot, the cast (sad to say, a fine one) is left to chew the scenery. And chew away they do.
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Adapted exclusively by King from his own 2006 novel, Lisey's Story is a mess in almost every conceivable way. It's drawn from a leaden and forgettable novel, and King's ponderous attempt at a screenplay has done nothing to improve it. Neither has Chilean director Pablo Larrain's painfully arty translation of the written word into video. And while Lisey's Story is loaded with female star power—Julianne Moore, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Joan Allen play sisters—King and Larrain have given them little to do except look head-bangingly anguished or (in Allen's case) catatonic.
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Performances can only do so much to mitigate King's exhaustive scripts and the stylized but spiritually chilled approach Larraín takes to directing pieces like this. Writing for readers has a cadence distinct from writing for the screen that eludes King here. ... In the finale King stacks enough endpoints on top of each other and keeps on going that after a point it starts to feel like the cinematic equivalent of medieval punishment.
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The cast is superb, especially among the three sisters, and the storytelling takes structural risks. But there’s something deeply unpleasant about “Lisey’s Story,” a stubborn elusiveness and fierce humorlessness that cut off whatever observations it might make about love and human nature. ... “Lisey’s Story” also indulges in a sadistic streak that goes above and beyond the call of duty.
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The indulgent and histrionic screenplay represents a final flourish of excess piled into a project already top-heavy to a fault.
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The many extended, atmospheric stretches that rely on these visuals and performances get tedious fast. The show is too long; it wrings eight molasses-paced episodes out of a story that provides sufficient narrative for four at most. And technical competence can’t save a skeletal plot held together by pseudo-psychology or a script pocked with bad lines.