Pieces of Her

A tidy and effective thriller without much to say about the state of anything at all.

Despite its foreseeable conclusion, Pieces Of Her is still a pleasant thriller, especially due to Collette and Heathcote’s work. Being aggressively mediocre but enjoyable overall isn’t a bad thing—in this case, predictability triumphs any outlandish endings.

“Pieces of Her” isn’t perfect–it feels at once overstuffed and truncated–but it’s undeniably compelling television thanks to its strong cast and endless cache of surprises.

The series coasts on several genuinely shocking and well-executed twists, which do indeed puncture the haze of passive-watching we’re so used to. And maybe that adrenaline hit is enough, because while Pieces of Her isn’t a very good show, it will probably be No 1 on Netflix for the next week. At least.

It’s slick, the plot runs like clockwork and – just as with the book – you can walk away at the end feeling thoroughly entertained without being able to remember a solitary thing about it.

It’s a show where the first episode is by far the best, because you can’t quite see the limits of their ambition yet. None of it quite makes sense, and while none of it is explicitly terrible, it’s not captivating either.

Pieces of Her is fast food storytelling presented on a high end plate. Collette and Shapiro do their best to lend depth to an otherwise shallow story. Which means if you just want a tawdry thriller to zone out to, Pieces of Her will suffice. But if, like me, you want something deeper, you’ll find Pieces of Her’s biggest mystery will be how this tonally mismatched, structurally messy show came to be.

Pieces of Her proves reasonably compelling on that level and those terms, but as such limited series go, still feels as if it adds up to less than the sum of its parts.

It’s a shame that this inert writing drags down most of the performers with it too. Heathcote blandly plays confusion for most of the series, which likely makes for a relatable protagonist on the page but a boring one on TV. ... Only Collette offers any interiority.

After ratcheting up to 10 early in the first episode, this show’s stress levels rarely fall below an 8.5. 15 minutes cannot go by without some twist, revelation or misdirect. Although you never know what’s coming, you always know something is. By episode six, these “surprises” lose all impact.

In all, “Pieces of Her” is at its best when it allows itself to remain a puzzle: Putting it together, with endless expositional flashbacks schematically setting up what began as an intriguing and emotionally engaging story, removes the show’s charge.

In its waning minutes, “Pieces of Her” reveals shards of what could’ve been: how a parent hiding her full identity from their kid can influence distorted identities later on; how honesty, no matter how difficult, can provide as much closure as pain; how suppressing a history of violence isn’t the same as hoping for a present without it. If any of that sounds compelling, seek out Cronenberg’s classic. “Pieces of Her” is too content to coast on, well, pieces.

verybody apparently abandons their jobs without explanation, little irritants that add up, making for a sloppy and fairly obvious story. What’s odd is that so much talent — the fine young actress Jessica Barden plays an earlier version of Laura — is involved in what is basically this week’s content.

The time-shifts also dilute whatever suspense there is in Andy's ordeal, which becomes increasingly hard to believe or care about as Pieces of Her lurches to its puzzling anticlimactic finish. [14 - 27 Mar 2022, p.7]

What makes the series’ mediocrity all the more frustrating is that touch upon the germ of a meaningful idea.

It’s not terrible, if you’d like to while away the hours watching a thriller that won’t tax your brain, and there are a couple of decent twists. It just could have been so much better.