She tells the group they wouldn’t have liked her back then, but after a near-death experience, Masha turned her life around, started this exclusive retreat, and has been helping people ever since.Īnd yet, someone is trying to kill her. Played by Nicole Kidman with a Russian accent that rises and falls whenever she feels like it, Masha (pronounced like you yawned while saying “Marcia”), used to be a bad lady in her home country. Or so, that’s what founder and director Masha Dmitrichenko contends. ![]() These nine folks may come in as strangers, but they’ll leave having helped each other reach a higher plane of existence. Well, actually, only six are paying the full freight: The Marconi family was offered a discount to be there, considering Napoleon is just a public school teacher, and the rest of the group seems fine with it considering no one is there by accident the guests were selected to attend not only based on need and willingness, but because they bring out essential elements of one another. Luke Evans, Michael Shannon, and Manny Jacinto in “Nine Perfect Strangers” Vince Valitutti / HuluĪll nine of these strangers have been chosen to attend a 10-day seminar in which they’ll be healed and transformed, and all nine are paying a hefty fee for the experience. There’s Ben (Melvin Gregg from “High Flying Bird”) and Jessica Chandler (Samara Weaving), a young married couple who could use a romantic shot in the arm Lars Lee (Luke Evans), a curt man who likes his Hostess Snowballs, perhaps because he’s still hurting after getting dumped Carmel Schneider (Regina Hall), a relentlessly optimistic divorcée with rage issues the Marconi family, made up of Heather (Asher Keddie), Zoe (Grace Van Patten), and, I shit you not, Napoleon (Michael Shannon) Tony Hogburn (Bobby Cannavale) a proud grump whose chronic pain formed an addiction to more than his bad mood and Frances Welty (Melissa McCarthy), a novelist who’s having a hard time selling her latest book, which is particularly bad timing given she’s just been catfished for a chunk of change. Shortly after the first fruit encounter, each of the resort’s guests are introduced as they make the winding drive to their mysterious destination. With a stacked cast and a creative team meant to invite comparisons to “Big Little Lies” (Kidman stars, Kelley writes, and Moriarty started it all), “Nine Perfect Strangers” tells the story of nine seemingly disconnected individuals invited to a private retreat run by an inspiring leader who promises to change their lives, presumably for the better. Tossed in as a desperate, unnatural kicker to end the third episode, the painfully obvious “revelation” emphasizes the emptiness of the series around it, while embodying the big picture problems plaguing Nicole Kidman’s latest disappointing limited series: There’s nothing special here, and whatever juice was stirred into Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel of the same name, that’s been squeezed out of this languid, lost eight-episode drama. But “Nine Perfect Strangers” - directed by Jonathan Levine, co-written by Kelley, John Henry Butterworth, and Samantha Strauss - treats this moment like it’s both a shocking twist of fate and no big deal at all. ![]() “There were shakes, right? And they talked about them a lot? There has to be a payoff eventually.”īy the time it arrives, the build-up is akin to finally seeing the next Bond film. “Nine Perfect Strangers” withholds its smoothie reveal long enough to make viewers question their own sanity. Why would you think that? All of the ornate shake-making, all those little straws sliding between multihued ice chunks, all the warnings from resort staffers to their thirsty guests not to share their beverages - “they’ve been specifically calibrated for you!” - those are just for fun. ‘Justified: City Primeval’ Episode 3 Stresses the Limits of Good Intentions - SpoilersĮxcept no, there isn’t. ![]() But one thing is clear, from both the shot repetition and their priority placement over actual, very popular people: There’s something going on with these shakes. Kelley has an unhealthy smoothie obsession or a frightening vendetta against fruit. ![]() Considering the artful colors splashing around those violent blades, it’s hard to tell if series writer David E. Watermelons, mangoes, raspberries - you name the fruit, it’s going to get liquefied. Over the course of the first six episodes, audiences will become quite familiar with what it looks like to see vivid chunks of seedy snacks being diced into drinks. They’re all sitting in a slowly churning blender, about to be puréed into gloppy, pink, mush. Diced strawberries, a chopped banana, a few blueberries. Not one member of the starry ensemble is featured in the opening moments of Hulu’s limited series - not its Oscar-winning executive producer and star, nor either of its two-time Oscar nominees. The first shot of “ Nine Perfect Strangers” is not, in fact, one of the titular strangers.
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