• The first three of eight episodes of

    Nine Perfect Strangers

    are available this Friday on Amazon Prime Video.

  • This series by David E. Kelley, with Nicole Kidman in the lead role, was one of the most anticipated of the year.

    Unfortunately, the first episodes posted online did not live up to our expectations.

  • Besides Nicole Kidman's tendency to overdo it, the plot is dragging its

    feet

    and the whole suffers from the comparison with

    The White Lotus

    (MyCanal), one of the most popular series of this summer with which she presents a few similarities.

This is one of the most anticipated series of the year! After

Big Little Lies

 and

The Undoing,

Nicole Kidman is teaming up again with David E. Kelley for the Hulu

Nine Perfect Strangers series

, the first three episodes of which are available in France since this Friday on Amazon Prime Video. The series, which has eight episodes, is an adaptation of another novel by Liane Moriarty, the author of

Big Little Lies

. With this trio, we hoped for a new masterpiece. However,

Nine Perfect Strangers

does not live up to our expectations.

While

The White Lotus

 - the mini-series, visible on myCanal, is one of the most popular of the summer - placed its assortment of protagonists in a luxurious palace in Hawaii,

Nine Perfect Strangers

installs its nine souls in pain, reunited to start from scratch, in a sumptuous holistic wellness center, ironically called Tranquillum House.

The place is run by Masha (Nicole Kidman), a mysterious Russian who became, through trauma, a personal development guru.

She is supported by her devoted employees in white Mao-collared uniforms, Yao (Manny Jacinto, the unmistakable Jason of

The Good Place

) and Delilah (Tiffany Boone, aka Roxy Jones in

Hunters

).

To camp the nine curists, David E. Kelley has assembled an impressive cast. Oscar-winning actress Melissa McCarthy (

Gilmore Girls'

unforgettable Sookie

)

stars as Frances, a best-selling author whose career is on the decline. In addition, she went through a tough and emotionally embarrassing blow. Regina Hall (

Ally McBeal)

plays Carmel, a divorced woman who has lost confidence in herself, in fits of rage. Bobby Cannavale (

Vinyl

) plays the impulsive Tony who became addicted to opiates after an injury. Luke Evans, meanwhile, is Lars, a cynical and jaded homosexual.

Ben (Melvin Gregg) and Jessica (Samara Weaving) are a young couple who are already struggling.

Michael Shannon (Richard Strickland in

The Shape of Water

by Guillermo Del Toro), Asher Keddie and Grace Van Patten form a family struggling to overcome grief.

On paper, all the ingredients and talents come together to deliver a brilliant event series.

So why isn't the sauce setting?

Nicole Kidman does too much

First bad point: Nicole Kidman does tons of it with her wobbly Russian accent.

Her long blonde wig and her supernatural thinness are not enough to explain the incredible magnetism that Masha exerts on people.

The series is the victim of bad timing: the epilogue of 

The White Lotus

, posted online Monday, is still fresh in our memories

.

 She and those who have seen this biting satire, which has gradually deployed all its intelligence and power over the episodes, will not be able to refrain from drawing comparisons.

And in this game,

Nine Perfect Strangers

is not a winner.

A series too applied

In

Nine Perfect Strangers

, everything seems too conscientious.

Series

speaks of pain, loss, regret, self-esteem, but in a way too applied and bland to trigger real emotion in the viewer.

Aside from the exchanges between Tony and Frances, the dialogues often fall flat.

The cracks in the different characters are poorly exploited.

A too slow plot

The aspects of the thriller (the mystery around Masha, her past and her motivations, exposed via hazy flashbacks) fail to be really captivating.

And by dint of wanting to make the mystery last and to dilute the revelations on the characters, the first episodes are on the spot and the intrigues do not manage to fully captivate, where

The White Lotus

(we can not help but compare ) wastes neither a line of dialogue nor a glance.

We feel that the series aims to question the major concerns of our time (addiction to drugs, new technologies, social networks, etc.).

The problem is, David E. Kelley and the writers struggle to finely integrate everything they want to say into the episodes.

A subtext that lacks substance

Nine Perfect Stranger

lacks substance because it doesn't explore what should have been its main theme: the fascinating question of our relentless quest for self-improvement.

The chaos of Tranquillum promises to be predictable and inexorable.

Maybe something big awaits the viewer in the last four episodes (which we haven't gotten to see yet).

However, faced with the bloated supply of series,

Nine Perfect Strangers

, despite its slick elegance, requires a lot of patience on the part of the public, who may be tempted to look for more captivating elsewhere.

People

Nicole Kidman almost canceled the shooting of her new series "Nine Perfect Strangers"

Series

"Gossip Girl", "Nine Perfect Strangers", "The Chair" ... The calendar of novelties and series not to be missed this summer

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