Big Little Lies Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.5

Big Little Lies Blu-ray Movie Review

Who's killed? Laura Palmer?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 31, 2017

David E. Kelley may be best remembered for his work in various capacities (as either writer or creator, or both) for a number of attorney focused series like L.A. Law, The Practice, Boston Legal and (probably especially) Ally McBeal, but some Kelley fans may be thinking of a less well remembered Kelley series as they watch Big Little Lies, a fantastically entertaining HBO miniseries which Kelley culled from a novel by Liane Moriarty. That series would be Kelley’s 1992 - 1996 effort Picket Fences, a show which attempted to peel back the “happily ever after” facade adorning a picturesque town to reveal the ugliness underneath. Picket Fences owed at least some of its ambience to the then still relatively trendy Twin Peaks, and in a way Big Little Lies may remind some viewers of a time early in the David Lynch enterprise’s pretty brief broadcast existence when the central question surrounding the show was “Who killed Laura Palmer?”, rather than “WTF is that dancing little person saying?”. One of the interesting things about Big Little Lies is that Kelley (who wrote all seven episodes) has brilliantly structured the show so that the viewer knows someone has been killed, but not which of the miniseries’ large cast of characters. With sometimes hilarious interstitials of police interviews of a number of tangential characters, it becomes clear that the tony climes of Monterey, California are a hotbed of personal animuses, backyard gossip and competing interests that have resulted in a murder.

Note: I've done my best to dance around providing too much information in the following part of the review, but those who are adept at reading between the lines may be able to guess some "spoilers" even if they're not overtly detailed. Those with these particular talents are encouraged to skip down to the technical portions of the review below, at least if they're concerned about figuring some of the miniseries' mysteries out.

The miniseries’ opening credits feature the perhaps anachronistic sight of extremely well to do women actually driving their kids to school (nannies do indeed pop up in a few episodes). Those moms include Madeline Martha MacKenzie (Reese Witherspoon), whose first grader Chloe (Darby Camp) is wise beyond her years and is the social butterfly of Monterey’s upscale public elementary school. Madeline gets into a shouting match with another car on the way to orientation day, and it turns out one of the car’s passengers is Madeline’s older daughter Abigail Carlson (Kathryn Newton), the progeny of Madeline’s first marriage to Nathan Carlson (James Tupper). Nathan is now married to free spirit Bonnie (Zoë Kravitz) who, much to Madeline’s dismay, has become something of a BFF to Abigail.

Madeline’s shouting match results in her twisting her ankle, and she’s more or less rescued by another mom dropping her son off at Orientation Day. That turns out to be Monterey newcomer Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley), who is decidedly not in the “1%” that seems to make up the bulk of Monterey’s population. Jane is obviously traumatized and running away from something (as evidenced by the gun she keeps under her pillow at night), but that, along with a number of other plot points, is kept under wraps in the miniseries’ early going. Jane and Madeline hit it off almost instantly, and when Jane’s son Ziggy (Iain Armitage) is accused of bullying a little girl, Madeline quickly comes to Jane’s defense. The little girl doing the accusing is Amabella Klein (Ivy George), daughter of one of Monterey’s most successful career women, Renata (Laura Dern).

The other main female character is Celeste Wright (Nicole Kidman), a woman whose marriage to the “much younger” Perry (Alexander Skarsgård) provides much gossip around the town, but which seems to be sparked by a potent (and perhaps pathological) sexuality. While the putative focus of Big Little Lies would seem to be at least mostly on Madeline, it’s actually the Wright marriage that turns out to be the lynchpin around which much of the ensuing drama hinges. And in fact some of the undeniably shocking aspects of this marriage provide an early and guessable clue about who the real culprit in the Amabella bullying scenario might be. Celeste is another one of Madeline’s friends, and indeed is kind of a confidante, though Perry’s concern about Ziggy’s perceived emotional imbalance keeps her a little distant from Madeline’s attempts to unite the women against Renata’s wish to ostracize Ziggy and Jane.

Big Little Lies generates wonderful suspense since the murder victim is not identified until the final episode, but there are other conflicts galore, both dramatic and comedic, that provide consistent momentum leading up to the big “reveal”. Jane’s mysterious past is actually unraveled relatively early on, and its ultimate connection to Monterey may seem overly contrived, but it does generate quite a bit of angst, especially courtesy of near hallucinogenic quick cutting courtesy of director Jean-Marc Vallée which capably depicts Jane’s roiling psychological state. Humor is wrung out of Madeline’s attempts to get Monterey to allow her stage a children’s theater performance of Avenue Q, not to mention her constant tendency to snarkily comment on the other residents. A bit more soap operatic content is on hand vis a vis Madeline’s relationship with Abigail, and Abigail’s relationship with Bonnie, not to mention Nathan’s relationship with all of them, including Madeline’s second husband Ed (Adam Scott). This might sound like too much content for a mere seven episodes, but the consistently smart and well structured writing by Kelley allows everything to unfold organically, with a rare and commendable balance between some jaw dropping dramatic developments and some laugh out loud moments of hilarity.

An ensemble piece like this relies on consistent performances, and Big Little Lies is a veritable field day of fine work from the entire cast. The four central females (Witherspoon, Kidman, Woodley and Dern) have rarely been better (all are Emmy nominated), and the male side of the aisle is also beautifully realized, with some especially good (if unbelievably disturbing) work from Skarsgård (also Emmy nominated). The younger actors are also well modulated and believable, never resorting to “cutesy”-itis, and in fact (especially in the case of Armitage as Ziggy) delivering some real emotion to the enterprise.

Big Little Lies Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Big Little Lies is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. According to several online sources (including some that interview cinematographer Yves Bélanger), the shoot utilized Arri Alexa cameras and natural lighting conditions. Those lighting conditions sometimes cast a slightly hazy glow on sequences that take place in "magic time" outside, but generally speaking this is a sharp and well detailed presentation that offers excellent fine detail levels in the many close-ups employed. There's a bit of rather subtle color grading going on at times, with even some bright outdoor scenes looking just a tad green and some nighttime material definitely skewed toward blue, but none of the palette tweaks significantly affect detail levels. (There's some very interesting information regarding the capture, lighting conditions and grading in this interview with Bélanger. The effulgent light sources, along with some misty outdoor sequences, can tend to give a slightly gauzy look to individual moments, but these are obviously stylistic choices. A couple of overly dark scenes, like a showdown between Renata and Madeline at a bar, or, later, Trivia Night (where the murder takes place) have slightly less shadow detail than I personally would have preferred, but I doubt any of this limited series' fans will have any major qualms about the appearance of this transfer.

Big Little Lies Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Frequent cutaways to crashing waves and other beach sounds provide Big Little Lies' DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track with some good surround activity, and there's near constant use of other ambient environmental sound effects in the many other outdoor scenes, but this is largely a dialogue driven enterprise, and as such immersion can tend to ebb and flow, kind of like the pounding Pacific outdoor of many of the characters' homes. Dialogue is always presented cleanly, and both score and source cues sound clear and distortion free.

Big Little Lies Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Inside the Episode

  Episode 1 (1080p; 1:20)

Disc Two

• Inside the Episodes

  Episode 3 (1080p; 00:59)

  Episode 4 (1080p; 1:16)

  Episode 5 (1080p; 00:45)

Disc Three

• Inside the Episodes

  Episode 6 (1080p; 00:58)

  Episode 7 (1080p; 1:05)

• About Big Little Lies (1080p; 7:25) is an okay EPK with interviews and scenes from the miniseries.

Big Little Lies Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Big Little Lies completely subverts a traditional "whodunit" ambience into something more like a "who's it been done to?", something that structurally speaking will keep most viewers on edge until the final episode. But the series is often more like The Real Housewives of Monterey, and as such is often blackly funny and also occasionally beyond shocking. Performances are top notch, Kelley's writing has rarely been better, and Jean-Marc Vallée's direction keeps things moving gracefully every step of the way. I can't remember a limited series I've enjoyed more than Big Little Lies, and even without much in the way of supplements, this release easily comes Highly recommended.