Book to Movie: Big Little Lies

Sometimes turning a book into a movie doesn't work well and sometimes it works really well. "Big Little Lies" is a thriller by Liane Moriarty that I really enjoyed and I was interested to see how it would translate to the screen in the recent HBO miniseries.

The miniseries has a lot of big name stars like Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, and Laura Dern to just name a few. It has a truly star-studded cast. The miniseries is seven jam packed episodes with a lot of twists and turns. Although the book had many layers, it didn't feel quite as twisty as the miniseries did. I loved the book but the miniseries really packed a punch.

There were a lot of differences between the book and the movie. Some of these differences included:

• The setting being moved from Australia to the California coast.
• Madeline having a whole sub-plot regarding bringing Avenue Q to their town.
• Madeline having an affair the way she did.
• Jane's relationship in the end.
• The ending was different.

Like the book, the story in the miniseries is told by going back and forth between the past and present. This helped keep me on my toes throughout the whole series. Even though I knew how the book ended and therefore thought I could guess how the miniseries would end, the way that the story was told made me think that there could possibly be another outcome, which I loved!

The miniseries is great! The music is good (I neeeeed to buy the soundtrack)! The cinematography is gorgeous and captures the sort of noir-like feel of the story. The acting is great. I love Nicole Kidman but she played Celeste amazingly. Celeste is soooo complicated like she is in the book. Out of all of the main characters, it is Celeste that looks like she has the most picture perfect life and it is also Celeste that probably has the worst stuff going on in the background. Kidman played all of this so well!

If you haven't read the book or seen the series, read the book first (always, always, always) and then watch the miniseries!

Thanks to HBO and ThinkJam for a copy of the book and the miniseries! What a treat!