Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-markĬurious to the point of becoming enraptured is Elena, Shaker’s WASP queen and the one who usually measures the grass to make sure it’s up to spec. In WASPy Shaker, where residents are expected never to let their manicured lawns grow taller than six inches high, a bohemian black single mother and artist like Mia is a curiosity. Mia’s a bohemian artist, and she spends her life traveling from town to town, enrolling Pearl in new school after new school as she looks for inspiration to fuel her work. It begins when Mia arrives in the pristine and lily-white Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights with her daughter, Pearl ( Lexi Underwood). Little Fires Everywhere, like the novel, is set in the late ’90s. Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere aggressively amps up the understated conflict of Celeste Ng’s novel

In the end, it all ends up feeling exhausting.

In any event, this show (which will run for eight episodes total I’ve seen seven) lapses into flatness whenever it possibly can, and it is always very ready to tell you exactly who is right and who is wrong in any given situation. That may be due to Ng’s careful distance she’s said in interviews that she wanted the show to be its own thing, so she was sparing in her guidance. Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere is a rich and nuanced book about motherhood and suburban conformity, a book that makes everyone a little bit wrong and a little bit right and never, ever lets either its characters or its reader off the hook.īut Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere, created and executive produced by Liz Tigelaar, fails to capture Ng’s careful balance. It’s also not the source material’s fault. As Elena, Witherspoon angles her Tracy Flick brightness so that it’s beaming out over something brittle and middle-aged and wounded, and Washington mingles her Olivia Pope steeliness with Mia’s maternal tenderness until the combination feels vicious. Witherspoon and Washington turn in lovely performances as Elena and Mia, respectively, the two women whose relationship anchors the story. And if said series stars two ringers like Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington - both of whom also co-produce - and is based on a critically acclaimed novel by Celeste Ng (Ng has an executive producer credit), why then, all the better!Īnd yet it brings me no joy whatsoever to tell you that Little Fires Everywhere, whose first three episodes are streaming now on Hulu, is not particularly good. The world is on fire right now, so the idea of watching a nice premium limited series about a bunch of teeny tiny little fires everywhere sounds very appealing.

Ng little fires everywhere