9 Good Strangers Evaluation: Hulu’s Spa Retreat Is a Campy, Confused Mess

It’s all the time amusing when two TV reveals pop up on the similar time with the identical primary idea… however the variations may also be instructive. After The White Lotus premiered simply final month on HBO, now Hulu’s new drama Nine Perfect Strangers additionally follows a crew of mismatched strangers as they get greater than they bargained for on an idyllic resort getaway.

However whereas The White Lotus explores this idea with delicate, character-based humor, 9 Good Strangers — premiering Wednesday, Aug. 18; I’ve seen the primary 4 episodes — opts for a clumpy mixture of broad comedy, soppy drama and psychological horror that borders on campy. If The White Lotus is 30 Rock, then 9 Good Strangers is Studio 60 on the Sundown Strip: not “good,” precisely, and positively approach overblown, however nonetheless watchable in its personal unusual approach.

It has a stellar pedigree, to make certain, coming from Large Little Lies ebook creator Liane Moriarty, showrunner David E. Kelley and star Nicole Kidman. (It even has moody, evocative opening credit, identical to BLL.) Plus, it’s assembled an all-star forged, together with Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon, Regina Corridor and Bobby Cannavale — any certainly one of whom would make a TV present price watching. However as gifted as these actors are, the fabric they’re given right here is flimsy and threadbare. It’s a clumsy mix of personalities and tones that by no means meshes collectively; the actors appear to be performing on two or three totally different reveals, a minimum of.

The story facilities on a bunch of unsuspecting friends who arrive at an expensive New Age retreat referred to as Tranquillum that’s tucked away within the California woods. They’re all right here to heal totally different emotional wounds — although most of them battle to depart their telephones behind — and so they principally begin out hopeful and open to the resort’s odd quirks. (There’s a effective line between Zen-like serenity and cultish obedience, and Tranquillum walks proper as much as the sting of that line.) Earlier than lengthy, although, the friends descend into hostile bickering and paranoia, which isn’t very Zen of them. There’s a creeping sense of dread right here, too: Why do they want to attract a lot blood from the friends? And what’s in these smoothies, anyway?

Then we meet Masha, the mysterious Russian guru who runs the resort and is performed by Kidman in what needs to be one of many strangest TV performances of the yr. Masha is an ethereal blonde wisp with a decidedly confrontational method to remedy and an accent that’s all around the map — from Moscow to Sydney and again once more, generally inside the similar sentence. Her tough-love remedy techniques are borderline comical, and I discovered myself wishing the present would simply tip over into full-blown, ridiculous camp throughout her scenes. (Kidman is clearly up for it!) However then we, together with the Tranquillum friends, are additionally served up a number of self-improvement clichés which can be oddly taken at face worth, resulting in corny, unearned epiphanies. 9 Good Strangers appears to wish to skewer but additionally honor the New Age way of life on the similar time, and neither method absolutely lands.

It’s a pleasure simply to see so many good actors on display — The Good Place‘s Manny Jacinto performs a Buddhist monk! He’s Jianyu in any case! — nevertheless it’s irritating to look at their efforts be wasted. McCarthy performs Frances, a self-loathing romance novelist on the skids and liable to outbursts, and she or he soaks up quite a lot of display time, however the character by no means fairly comes into focus. Shannon is appealingly goofy as “chronically loquacious” dad Napoleon, Corridor hints at years of bottled-up rage as frazzled mother Carmel, and Cannavale does his typical foulmouthed hothead act as Tony. However the characters are too thinly drawn to attach with, and there are too a lot of them working round right here to dig too deeply into any certainly one of them.

Of all of the totally different reveals 9 Good Strangers is, I most wished to look at the one the place a deranged Nicole Kidman runs a well being spa with nefarious intentions. However alas, that present is crammed in right here together with a number of others that don’t work practically as nicely — or a minimum of aren’t practically as enjoyable. Kelley and Moriarty lampooned wealthy individuals’s issues so exactly in Large Little Lies, it’s a little bit shocking to look at them stumble so badly right here. However they do. The White Lotus is already in talks to return for a second season, and that’s excellent news certainly. However I feel I’ll be chopping my stick with 9 Good Strangers quick.

THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Regardless of an excellent forged and a few enjoyable parts, 9 Prefect Strangers is a messy mixture of comedy, drama, horror and camp.