David E Kelly has a knack for showing us. How do we become the exact opposite of what we think we are fighting for? Why do we feel a need to form battle lines over issues that require only a few minutes of attention? How does standing up for oneself become hyper vigilance? Why do we ignore what it happening in front of our faces at the expense of everything we cherish? Why is everything an extension of our own selfish needs,ideas and beliefs. Why are secrets so dangerous?
I think this story examines all these questions and more about human behavior and the need to be right,to form battle lines and how many of us become the exact opposite of what we believe we are fighting. How we are all really just children and how dangerous we can be when we feel threatened,whether a threat exists or not. We are ripe for the battle regardless. How we somehow become unable to see further than our own noses. How we lose that which we first thought defines us by attempting to protect it. How we project what is real onto things that are mostly fantasy,made up in our minds so we never deal with the real monster we are holding hands with,but ignore at all costs. How right and wrong becomes good and evil,as do those we have conflict with. How a happy medium is forgotten because our need to be right 100% takes precedence. How we simply can not see these things as they happen. How these things have an escalation,is quick and has a power of its own.
Kelly has always used a sense of the exaggerated to show us ourselves. He does it brilliantly and without reservation for what may seem like the absurd when we all know that it isn't.
Big Little Lies takes something incidental and uses it to show us ourselves. And it isn't pretty!
I think this story examines all these questions and more about human behavior and the need to be right,to form battle lines and how many of us become the exact opposite of what we believe we are fighting. How we are all really just children and how dangerous we can be when we feel threatened,whether a threat exists or not. We are ripe for the battle regardless. How we somehow become unable to see further than our own noses. How we lose that which we first thought defines us by attempting to protect it. How we project what is real onto things that are mostly fantasy,made up in our minds so we never deal with the real monster we are holding hands with,but ignore at all costs. How right and wrong becomes good and evil,as do those we have conflict with. How a happy medium is forgotten because our need to be right 100% takes precedence. How we simply can not see these things as they happen. How these things have an escalation,is quick and has a power of its own.
Kelly has always used a sense of the exaggerated to show us ourselves. He does it brilliantly and without reservation for what may seem like the absurd when we all know that it isn't.
Big Little Lies takes something incidental and uses it to show us ourselves. And it isn't pretty!