“Nine Perfect Strangers”: the new series with Nicole Kidman does not convince completely

We have been dreaming for years of seeing a series centered around a group of wealthy and neurotic Americans who go on a spiritual retreat to find themselves and, as often happens, now we even have two besieging the platforms: The White Lotus, the new HBO series written and directed by Mike White, formerly behind Dawson’s Creek e School of Rock, which will arrive on August 30 on Sky, and Nine Perfect Strangers, the new Hulu series created by David E. Kelley and available in Italy on Amazon Prime Video. The engine of the action, we said, is the same: rich people in deep existential crisis who go to a luxury resort to remove the chaos from their lives, trying to get as close as possible to that serenity and well-being suggested by candles. scented, freshly squeezed drinks and straight lines in beige and ocher colors that seem to come out of the Ikea catalog. Tranquility House the holistic center surrounded by greenery in which the “nine perfect strangers” of the title will try to solve their problems, presents itself with the same sinister air with which Shirley Jackson’s Hill House presented itself: mammoth, beautiful, mysterious and, of course , the perfect trap for all unsuspecting guests who don’t know what they’re getting into.

To help put together the broken lives of the protagonists, entrusted to a stellar cast that goes from Melissa McCarthy to Regina Hall, from Bobby Cannavale to the great Michael Shannon, from Luke Evans to Manny Jacinto, is the new queen of television series Nicole Kidman which, after the Emmy and the Golden Globe won for Big Little Lies and the international success of The Undoing, returns to work with David E. Kelley and with Liane Moriarty, the author of Big Little Lies. In Nine Perfect Strangers interpret Masha Dmitrichenko, a kind of Russian emigrant saint with a perfectly ironed blonde wig and a slightly fake Soviet accent who will try to attract the guests of the center to her side with the excuse of helping them to resolve their inner conflicts, while not remaining convincing until At bottom. One of the most evident defects of the series is, in fact, that of offering an ultra-glossy and cold picture of an action that struggles not only to fuel, but also to thrill the public who, among hundreds of series to recover and to see, he might get bored to find out that it will take at least four bets before that Nine Perfect Strangers put your highlight on the grill. The premises, from the isolation of Tranquillum House to the obligation, on the part of the guests, to sign a release in which they undertake not to disclose information on the treatment to heal the pain, are valid in themselves, but are lost behind a narrative who sees his strength not so much in Kidman, that at least in the first few episodes it is a bit of a beautiful statuette fixed on itself and on a past that resurfaces from time to time, but out of the nine protagonists, the only ones able to offer the right fuel to continue the vision.

To stand out among others are above all Melissa McCarthy, perfect in the role of a writer, Frances, convinced that her career as a bestseller is now over; Michael Shannon, credible in the role of a father and a husband who hides the shadow of mourning behind an unbearable facade optimism; Bobby Cannavale, here as a former football champion trying to manage violent fits of anger, e Regina Hall, a sweet divorced woman who appears to have agreed to move to Tranquillum House just to lose weight and reconnect with the scales. The most effective moments are, however, offered by the young Grace Van Patten, the girl struggling with herself who, from panic attacks to the need to take time from her family to heal from the evil that feeds on her insecurities, is perhaps the closest thing to reality in a series that seeks depth by stranding, however, in a package that is too cold and in a development that is too slow to be fully appreciated. The episodes will arrive weekly on Amazon Prime Video and, despite filming in beautiful Byron Bay in Australia, Nicole’s country, and the cast, something is not completely convincing. The fact that it comes out almost simultaneously with The White Lotus certainly does not help, but we will find out the rest only in the coming weeks.