'Big Little Lies' is a B-class drama with an A-class cast

The new TV miniseries 'Big Little Lies' is heavy on star power, but light on plot, writes Rebecca Davis

Imagine the following. You move towns, as a single mother, and enrol your six-year-old son at a new school.

When you arrive to pick him up after his first day, it emerges that one of the little girls in his class has been hurt by a fellow pupil. Without hesitation, she identifies your son as the culprit. He vehemently denies the charge, and you believe him.

But it's too late: among many of the other parents, he has already been classified as violent and delinquent.

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Sometimes a seemingly minor incident like this can be employed to striking effect in drama. This was the case with Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas's 2008 novel The Slap, which revolves around a three-year-old boy slapped at a barbecue for misbehaving by an adult who is not related to him. The novel was subsequently turned into two gripping miniseries.

But at other times, an event like the one I sketched above seems too slight to sustain a seven-part series. That's how I'm feeling about HBO's new show Big Little Lies, where the drama over which kid choked a little girl is already wearing thin, a few episodes in.

Big Little Lies has everything, on paper. The miniseries boasts a cast which would be the envy of most big-budget movies, starring Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern. It is written by David E Kelly, who brought us smash hits like Ally McBeal in the late '90s.

The setting is magnificent, with most of it taking place in rich people's beachfront homes. The performances are outstanding. Witherspoon, in particular, is so good in her role as an over-involved mother that the series feels at times like a documentary of her actual life.

And yet, for all these thumbs-ups in the credit ledger, Big Little Lies is missing something. The plot centres on three mothers in the kind of small town where everyone knows each other's business. We know from the outset that somebody has been killed at a school fundraiser, but the identity is kept from us.

"There's clearly a lot of bad blood in this community," the investigating cop observes. You can say that again. Witherspoon's character is particularly terrifying with her various feuds. "I love my grudges," she says. "I tend to them like little pets."

WATCH the trailer for Big Little Lies

Initially I thought the show was a slow-burner, taking its time to heat up. As I progress, though, I'm increasingly sceptical about whether there is anything to really sink your teeth into.

It grieves me to say this, but I suspect Big Little Lies might turn out to be like the house interiors it's shot in: glossy, great-looking, but ultimately a little bit sterile.

• 'Big Little Lies  airs on M-Net (DStv channel 101) on Wednesdays at 20:30.