The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

The Lost Flowers feels like a careful arrangement tied with the right ribbon and delivered with the best intentions. But you might prefer a few living blooms instead.

It all unfolds very beautifully, if sometimes slowly, interleaved by the odd clunky chunk of exposition.

The longer it goes, as it stretches out further in time and place, the more it loses sight of the strengths of its characters as a result. There is a care to each of the performances that is undercut by the way it is all stitched together, making individual pieces and scenes where we are seeing the characters grow into too much of a rarity.

The story is metaphors on top of metaphors on top of metaphors as it explores the generational legacy of abuse, but its thin overall narrative and especially its supporting characters frequently get lost in the effort to visualize those metaphors.

The series is both frustratingly convoluted and, at times, quite emotionally stirring. But the former clouds the latter, and graceful performances from Weaver and Debnam-Carey aren’t enough to keep The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart from wilting under the weight of its own ambition.

“The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart” wants to shed light on the lived experience of gendered abuse, and in that attempt, showrunner Sarah Lambert and director Glendyn Ivin employ some powerful imagery and performances. But the show too often heightens itself into melodrama, the opposite of the realism and sensitivity called for by its subject matter.