If the series premiere, “Random Acts of Mayhem,” is any indication of the next seven episodes, Levine’s main stylistic flourish will be unsettling close-ups - blender blades and smoothie ingredients, blood being extracted from arms into test tubes, the Matrix-green glow of Masha’s ever-watchful computer monitors.
Of course, another series about mostly rich, mostly unhappy people would draw Kelley’s attention, but in an interesting twist, the season-long director of Nine Perfect Strangers is Jonathan Levine, whose previous credits are mostly comedies: 50/50, Warm Bodies, The Night Before, Long Shot. Kelley at the helm (alongside co-creator John-Henry Butterworth) and Kidman in a starring role in their third collaboration together after Big Little Lies and The Undoing. Nine Perfect Strangers is the latest novel by Liane Moriarty to be adapted for TV, once again with David E. “Life is suffering until you die,” Masha says. What is the likelihood that fruit and hikes are really all you need to work through pain, regret, trauma, addiction, and self-hatred? Probably very slim! And yet here we are in Nine Perfect Strangers being guided toward “transformation” by Masha Dmitrichenko, a wellness-resort host played by Nicole Kidman (in Galadriel cosplay and a Cold War–era Bond-villain accent).
Does a lot of it line the pockets of snake-oil peddlers who use “self-help” as a get-rich-quick scheme? Of course. Resorts, crystals, cleanses, yoga, gazing inward to better focus your gaze outward - could aspects of this really help people? Sure. The wellness-industrial complex is a multiarmed behemoth.