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Positive:
21
Mixed:
11
Negative:
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Critic Reviews
Mar 17, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Alanis nostalgia aside, Little Fires Everywhere could have easily taken place in 2020 as the stories are resonant and topical. ... With a solid cast led by Witherspoon and Washington — not to mention, standout performances by Jade Pettyjohn, Lexi Underwood, and Megan Stott — Little Fires Everywhere takes its subject matter seriously and is unafraid to look at the uncanny, repulsive, and terrifying pieces of America.
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Feb 26, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Hulu's sharp, soapy and emotional intense limited series is more than your standard suburban whodunit. ... There's also a rich and satisfying teen drama nestled inside Little Fires' saga of adult ennui. The young cast - especially Stott as the angsty Izzy and Lewis as the lovelorn Moody - is impressive. [Mar 2020, p.90]
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Mar 3, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The show could be set in the present day. Its themes, particularly those surrounding what defines motherhood, are timeless. The conversation around race and privilege are perhaps even more relevant today than the era in which the show is set. Washington is fantastic as Mia. ... [Witherspoon] has perfected the entitled character who is blind to her own entitlement, living a life that is so controlled and carefully cultivated that she may have even lost sight of what she truly wants in life.
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The IndependentMay 21, 2020
TV Guide MagazineMar 18, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Not everything burns equally bright in this twisty saga. ... But any time the moms step into the spotlight--Rosamarie De Witt is also terrific as a desperately needy adoptive other--Fires scorches with emotional intensity. [16-29 Mar 2020, p.10]
The Daily BeastMar 18, 2020
Season 1 Review:
A properly addicting series. ... It’s one iconic actress acting against type, and another shading what she does best. For all the imperfections and missteps in adapting the source material, these lead performances are what light the match. It’s the fire you tune in to see burn.
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Mar 18, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Little Fires Everywhere feels like the second season of "Big Little Lies" that viewers wanted (or at least deserved), and not just because Reese Witherspoon is essentially playing the same character. A juicy adaptation of Celeste Ng's bestselling novel, the Hulu limited series dishes out an enticing mystery against a soapy backdrop of class and racial divides.
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Mar 16, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Witherspoon, who practically owns the franchise on uptight white women, gives this one an even bigger nudge. At times, “Little Fires” looks like a Marc Cherry potboiler. Washington, meanwhile, reacts like she’s in something more significant. That pull adds to the story’s allure and pushes our sympathies to others. ... “Little Fires Everywhere” doesn’t have the heft of “Pretty Little Lies,” but it should spark discussions about privilege, race and expectations.
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Mar 17, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Any worries Witherspoon might be spreading herself thin as an actor are dispelled the second she appears onscreen and disappears into the role of Elena Richardson. ... Subtle and not-so-subtle themes of institutional racism and class warfare are in the forefront throughout “Little Fires Everywhere.”
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Mar 17, 2020
Season 1 Review:
“Little Fires Everywhere” lands with confidence between the allure of prestige streaming television and a Shonda Rhimes-like propensity for soap suds. Flaws are few, but crucial. Episodes dawdle and dabble too long in too many convoluted story lines. ... By the seventh episode, the central act of arson feels more like a group effort, after so many family members and neighbors have been betrayed. It’s possible to savor the series and yet also root for the flames.
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Mar 4, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The larger conflict between the two mothers — and the storyline that ultimately makes this middlebrow melodrama feel increasingly smaller and less resonant through its mostly absorbing eight-episode run (of which seven installments were made available to critics) — is the opposing sides they take on a Solomonic case involving a 1-year-old infant left at a fire station. ... Its exploration of why women often feel more alienated from than connected to one another is far from lean-in aspirational, but at least it's honest.
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Movie NationAug 12, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Suspense shows up in the “secrets” that are inevitable in stories this soap operatic. Because that’s what this is, mysteries, conflicts and relationships teased out over eight hours — no cliffhangers — building back towards that opening blaze. And “on the nose” or not, even if the parts don’t much in the way of “She’s really stretching here,” there’s something to be said in very good actresses taking a pitch, right in their wheelhouse, and belting it.
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Mar 9, 2020
Season 1 Review:
It’s a pleasure to watch Washington lean into her well-known strengths. But where Witherspoon has done a smart job finding other recent parts (including Big Little Lies' busybody Madeline) that feel like interesting variations on her most familiar roles. ... For all the problems [Big Little Lies] had in its second season, it had a surer sense of how to tell its story, and how to use Witherspoon. These Little Fires ultimately don’t burn hot enough.
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IndieWireMar 4, 2020
Season 1 Review:
As a nighttime soap, the episodes can be juicy, biting entertainment, but as the drama stacks up, it loses power. Watching Washington dig deep again and again dulls the effect of her quivering lip and trembling voice; seeing Witherspoon wrap her villainous cloak ever-tighter feels suffocating, and somewhere amid the first seven episodes, the fire goes out under a blanket of melodrama.
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The PlaylistOct 5, 2020
Mar 19, 2020
Mar 17, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Rather than presenting characters in the round and then developing them, it presents characters as terms in a moral and cultural equation and then slowly reveals their pasts. For the viewer, the surprises are in the revelations and not in the choices the characters make, and rather than seeing the characters grow and change, we just see them being moved around the game board.
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Mar 12, 2020
Season 1 Review:
A story about class and race that strenuously avoids saying “class” or “race,” the adapted “Little Fires Everywhere” does contain enough bad behavior to make it a guilty pleasure. Even if guilt is the principal ingredient that the show is missing, and to a fatal degree. ... What keeps a viewer from empathizing with any of the lead characters is their utter lack of introspection.
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Mar 11, 2020
Season 1 Review:
The miniseries maintains a distracting focus on the characters played by its producer-stars in a way that undercuts the sense you get, reading Ng’s book, which divides its attention more equally among a dozen characters, that sleepy, self-satisfied Shaker Heights is the story’s true protagonist. These performances aren’t exactly incompetent, but they do feel a bit automated.
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Mar 4, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Little Fires Everywhere, I realized, must be what watching Big Little Lies is like for people who don’t like Big Little Lies. In my eyes, though, that show managed to find a way to elevate this kind of soapy, pulpy material into something great. Little Fires Everywhere, sadly, does not.
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