The Undoing

Better late than never, this Bank Holiday weekend I finally found the time to catch up with "The Undoing", another of 2020's zeitgeist shows that I missed at the time. I don't think I've got any grand new perspective to offer here, I found it a well-acted drama, with a couple of interesting twists, but with an ending that I found a little underwhelming.

The life of privilege that Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman) enjoys begins to unravel when her husband Jonathan (Hugh Grant) is accused of murder. The victim is Elena Alves (Matilda De Angelis) an artist, whose son attends the same school as the Frasers son, Henry (Noah Jupe). Grace learns that Jonathan has been hiding aspects of his life from her for years, not least that he and Elena have been having an affair.

So what did I really think? I thought that it was reasonably enjoyable. I liked the fact that the episodes often ended on cliff-hangers, or with potentially major reveals, however, they were a little less effective than they might be, given that I watched the whole series over a couple of days. The performances were reasonably good. Hugh Grant's recent renaissance continues with his turn as a the duplicitous but generally engaging Jonathan. I would, perhaps, like to see Nicole Kidman show a bit more range again, as this is another rich, wife, victim role straight after "Big Little Lies". Edgar Ramirez is a little wasted in a generic detective role. Donald Sutherland, perhaps like Nicole, could do with playing something other than rich, emotionally distant roles for a while. Nobody noticeable lets the side down though.

I was with the plot until then end. This is hard to talk about without spoilers and the show is really one big reveal of who killed Elena. . . But I'll say this, I don't think that the reveals on the final day of the court case would have been as damning as they are made out to be. Nor did I find the events of the last few scenes to be as interesting or satisfactory a conclusion as I hoped.

It's all fine, don't get me wrong, a good enough story elevated by some star power - it just didn't merit the hype it had at the time.

I really loved first five episodes. Grant, Jupe and Sutherland gave us great performances, Kidman did well. Some characters were useless or barely used, such a shame. Last episode seemed like classic Hollywood story. Ending had to be better. You should watch it. In the end it is a pretty good psychological thriller.

So much garbage out there, but The Undoing in quality. Well made , well acted and a gripping story line. We need more quality shows like this HBO.

"Much Ado About Nothing" Great cast, compelling storyline, poor final episode.

It's usually because of the writing.

In this case, it's the performances that drag this down, for me.

The Good:

Six episodes aren't a huge investment. There are great performances from secondary characters. Donald Sutherland!!! Hugh Grant is very good, in this

The Bad:

Nicole Kidman. From the theme song, to her strange acting choices (body language, vocal cadence, etc), I wish someone else was cast in the role.

The Son. I'll blame the director here, because this young actor seems to perform in ways that were woefully unconvincing.

The Detectives. Again, from the start, the choices made for the actual performances are strange, and often nonsensical.

The Finale. It's a letdown, for sure, Not much more to be said.

But perhaps the worst part of this limited series, is that for 5.5 episodes, it kept me mildly interested in seeing the story reach its conclusion. And when it finally did, I legitimately felt an annoyance that I had wasted my time.

Another commenter used the Law and Order analogy, and that's pretty accurate. Outside of the brief nudity and language (and obviously the A-List cast), it really comes off like your average L and O episode-only with that show, it's just a 60 minute time investment.

Perhaps this might have made a better 2 hour movie.