At first she is irked because she is sick of the local churches' attempts at getting new followers, but quickly realizes that this may be a romantic attempt from her husband. Disappointed, she goes to work and sees an invitation for dinner at the very same restaurant that she was planning on going to with her husband. She invites her husband to have a romantic dinner at a local restaurant, but he has already made plans to go to a baseball game. She moved from Cincinnati, Ohio and is working for a large law firm in the Chicago area. "Nine" particularly suffers by debuting just as a far superior story of the wealthy and privileged on a getaway concludes: HBO's "The White Lotus." Where "Lotus" was a biting class critique that never wasted a line of dialogue or withering stare, "Nine" feels rushed and interminable at the same time, lacking a point of view while looking important because of its star power and streaming pedigree.īut much like the wellness Masha is selling, "Nine" is perfectly pretty without real substance behind it.Nikki Cominsky (Pamela Brumley) is a lawyer with problems in her married life. So many characters make it inevitable that some will be underserved, and Jessica and Ben particularly feel like they're just filling in space in the background of the group shots. When Frances remarks that she's going to steal something Tony said for her next romance novel, it's not hard to believe the cheesy, hacky line would appear in a paperback with a shirtless man on the cover. Clunky exposition, hazy flashbacks, excessive nudity and drug-induced drama do not make up for a lack of confidence and clarity in storytelling.Īnd despite the best efforts of the cast, particularly Cannavale, Boone and Jacinto, the dialogue often falls flat in their mouths. Unfortunately, even in an eight-episode miniseries (six of which were made available to critics ahead of time), Kelley and the "Nine" writers struggle to fit everything they want to say and do into the episodes. It's easy to see how the complicated and layered story could unfold with ease on the page, with the unlimited words a novelist has to lay out her players and plots. Chaos, predictably, ensues at Tranquillum.Īll the books becoming movies in 2021: ‘The Last Letter from Your Lover,' 'Dune' and more Similarly, she plays her employees Delilah and Yao, who are in a romantic relationship, against each other to keep things going her way. Masha's methods may appear the same as other Instagrammable spas and rehabs, but there is something darker going on in how she is treating and manipulating her guests for their "health" and her personal goals.
There are a lot of backstories to get through, and a lot of egos and personalities that clash when the nine strangers start to get wrapped in Masha's web.
There's the Marconi family (Michael Shannon, Asher Keddie and Grace Van Patten), struggling to move past a loss Frances (McCarthy), a romance novelist recently scammed by an online boyfriend Tony (Cannavale), a mysterious former football player battling a painkiller addiction young married couple Jessica and Ben (Samara Weaving and Melvin Gregg), rich and beautiful but troubled Carmel (Hall), a divorceé with a sweet exterior but deep anger issues and Lars (Evans), a man recently dumped by his boyfriend, whose reasons for being at the center aren't clear.
They all came to Masha's Tranquillum House for different reasons.
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More than anything else, the Hulu series feels hollow.Īlthough the title would suggest there are only nine characters, the miniseries is about the nine people who sign up to be transformed at Masha's retreat, plus the elusive Russian owner and her staff, Delilah (Tiffany Boone) and Yao (Manny Jacinto).
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"Nine" is mediocre compared to Kelley's other work, which includes a long list of TV classics such as "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal." It's a huge disappointment considering its star-studded cast – Kidman, Melissa McCarthy, Bobby Cannavale, Regina Hall and Luke Evans, to name a few – and bestselling source material. Instead, "Nine" (first three episodes now streaming then weekly on Wednesdays, ★★ out of four) is a moderately serviceable soapy thriller about, well, nine perfect strangers at a shady wellness retreat run by eccentric guru Masha (Kidman).īut fine is as good as the quality of the series gets. Kelley with the Emmy-winning HBO series, don't expect the depth or complexity of "Lies" here. Although Hulu's "Nine Perfect Strangers" is based on another novel by Liane Moriarty, and it shares star Nicole Kidman and writer/producer David E.
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