I feel a little bamboozled after watching all eight episodes of "Nine Perfect Strangers." This was billed as a prestige project, created by David E. Kelley, based on a novel from "Big Little Lies" author Liane Moriarty. The cast is stuffed with good actors, including Nicole Kidman, Melissa McCarthy, Regina Hall, Luke Evans, and Michael Shannon. The premise sounded very promising - a group of strangers go to a ritzy health retreat called Tranquilum, run by a mysterious Russian guru figure, Masha, played by Kidman. It sounds like the perfect jumping off point for a thriller or a mystery or some kind of juicy melodrama, right? Right?!
Well, the nine guests who show up for the retreat aren't "nine perfect strangers" to begin with. There's a family unit of three, the Marconis, and another couple, the Chandlers. One character turns out to have a connection to Masha. The vast majority of the show is taken up by the characters introducing themselves, slowly revealing the traumas that are making them unhappy, and undergoing various treatments and therapies to try and find them a shortcut to healing from their various mental and emotional hangups. Every trick used by Masha and her minions is either based on bunk science, or implemented in its showiest form with no safeguards whatsoever. It becomes clear pretty quick that Masha is up to no good.
The series is mostly interested in trauma and people's attempts to heal from it. So, the action revolves around the characters trying to overcome tragedy or betrayal or guilt. The Marconis, Napoleon (Michael Shannon), Heather (Asher Keddie), and their 20 year-old daughter Zoe (Grace Van Patten), are trying to work through the grief of losing Zoe's twin brother to suicide. Frances (Melissa McCarthy), recently catfished by a con-artist, and Carmel (Regina Hall), deserted for a younger woman, are getting over broken hearts. Frances quickly connects with Tony (Bobby Cannavale), a former football star and drug addict. And finally, Masha herself, who turns out to have the most checkered past out of any of them, proves deadly earnest in helping them all.
Because the actors are so talented, and the production values are pretty good, I got most of the way through the series before realizing that the show was going nowhere, and then I figured I might as well finish it. "Nine Perfect Strangers" pulls off the trick of making it seem like there's more substance under the surface than there actually is. However, none of the characters display much depth or get much of an interesting arc, despite so much time devoted to setting them up for big confrontations and revelations. Absolutely nothing is done with the Chandlers - a young couple (Melvin Gregg, Samara Weaving), who are having relationship troubles. Mysterious asshole Lars (Luke Evans) fares only a little better. There's plenty of drama going on between Masha and her employees, Yao (Manny Jacinto) and Delilah (Tiffany Boone), but we never learn enough about the latter pair to care.
The trouble boils down to a very weak, meandering narrative. McCarthy and Cannavale have some real chemistry, and Regina Hall has some great scenes, but the story doesn't live up to their talents. Dramatizing people's mental health struggles isn't easy, but the show's tactics veer on the distasteful too often. Masha's treatments range from the silly to the wildly dangerous, but the show insists on treating her as sympathetic - and takes the disturbing stance that she might be right in the end. There's plenty of fertile ground for social commentary and satire here - and this is teased occasionally - but the show doesn't seem interested in pursuing any of it. Instead, the melodrama is played totally straight, and comes across as weirdly tone-deaf.
There's an excellent opening sequence featuring psychedelic visuals, which is my favorite part of the show. It's a pleasant acid trip that is echoed by various visuals in the show itself, but sadly not capitalized on as much as it could be. The best episodes are indeed the ones featuring copious abuse of drugs, setting up a grand finale of madness that seems beyond the ability of the show's architects to properly deliver. I see so many interesting pieces of what could have been a much better show here, but instead the result is just a colossal waste of time.
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