Nous les menteurs

This 8-part miniseries hit Prime streaming yesterday. My wife and I settled in and watched the first two episodes.

The biggest issue is nothing much happens in the first two episodes. The main character has an incident she doesn't remember at the end of episode one. Then most of episode two is flashing back and forward to understand why her family and friends reacted the way they did. And juveniles trying to sort out boy-girl issues. Sort of a teenage soap opera.

One reviewer wrote "flat, nonengaging", another wrote "lazy writing, lazy cast saying lazy lines." That pretty well captures this limited series. A story that might have been told well in a 90-minute movie is stretched to roughly 8 hours and the filmmakers expect us to devote all that time with just the HOPE that it will turn out entertaining and worthwhile.

Well, not for us. After giving it almost 24 hours to set in my wife and I both decided we had no interest in sticking with it.

However a week later I did watch the last episode just to see how they tried to tie things up. In fact I found it to be very interesting and I was surprised at what all had happened. I will go so far as to state, if a viewer doesn't want to spend 8 hours on the whole series then watching episodes 1, 2, and 8 can be pretty entertaining.

But one can tell, from the episode synopses provided by Prime for each episode, most of the filler time involves teenage soap-opera types of topics. That wasn't of much interest to us grandparents.

I'm usually really picky with TV shows. I can tell within a few minutes if something isn't for me. But this show grabbed me almost immediately. Maybe it was the visuals, or the divergent storyline, but something about it just clicked. The dynamic between the three Sinclair sisters was the highlight for me, their squabbles, their raw honesty, and the beautiful chaos of their lives. It felt authentic. Familiar, even reminiscent of Succession, but still fresh in its own way.

I expected the flashbacks to throw me off, and at first, I thought I was more drawn to their pasts, the lives they lived before the accident we knew little about. But as the episodes unfolded, I found myself just as invested in what had happened as I was in what was coming next. It surprised me how much I cared. It made perfect sense.

I grew up as one of the "poorer" cousins to old money from the east, so I am very familiar with the mindset, settings, attitudes, and behaviors of the wealthy. So far this does, in fact, portray them accurately. Yes they pretend to be perfect, but are far from it in reality. Maybe they're not portrayed favorably, as some critics would hope for, but accurately. I'm not here for that though, what I am here for is the mystery of regaining memories, rediscovering family, and character growth/development. Even though some people seem to be too idealistic in their views of the world, that's how some people are. I didn't get the sense that this show is being preachy at all. One character's views are not propped up as the only correct view. People believe different things, share different insights, get upset over petty issues, and it all comes together in a kaleidoscope of personalities. And "news flash" most people are disgusting, fallible, and stupid, whether they are in a trailer park, or in a mansion. It's just that some mask it better than others, and some try to control things so much to overcompensate for it, that the control bleeds over into invading the lives of others. I think if anything, so far, the show tells us that lies have consequences, no matter who you are. That is universal.

I want to say that I think the majority of people who are disappointed in this didn't read the book or don't know that its based off of a book. For those complaining about the writing, it was a young adult novel that was a pretty average book to begin with. I read it as a teacher because my middle school girls were obsessed with it for a period of time. It's creative and not perfect. I think this is a solid adaptation of a pretty good book. I just hate to see some people giving the show so much hate. For those of you who read and came here first to check out reviews, see if you can get a hold of the book and read it before watching the show!

I just have no words. I assume this movie is targeting the audience of 10 years old. The writing is really bad. It's like everyone involved was almost catatonic ...Very lazy writing, a cast that looks half-asleep, and dialogue that sounds like it was scribbled during lunch. It was worse than a filler time involving teenage soap-opera types of topics but act like they're not even teenagers. As if some kid in primary school wrote an essay and was made into this series.

I wasted time, I'll never get back hoping that it would at least end ok but it ends pathetically if you are a teenager. These kind of stories are what one would read to an 8 year old. I can't even believe that some actors in the series even signed up to play the characters and how bad the acting became because of the writing and cheesy predictable dialogues.

This whole season could just be 1hr movie. First time ever that I'm writing a review here because I just had to, since I've never seen anything this bad when it came to deciding to watch something.