The Undoing

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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/li...kidman-1161699

"Hugh Grant is staying put on TV for the time being. After a career-first move to the small screen with BBC One and Amazon's A Very English Scandal, the 58-year-old actor is heading to HBO, where he will star alongside Nicole Kidman in The Undoing.

The previously announced drama, a second collaboration at the premium cable outlet between Kidman's Blossom Films and David E. Kelley's eponymous production company, is based on the Jean Hanff Korelitz novel You Should Have Known. Grant will play the seemingly devoted husband of Kidman's central character, Grace Sachs.

"Overnight a chasm opens in Grace's life," reads the logline, "a violent death, a missing husband, and, in the place of a man Grace thought she knew, only a chain of terrible revelations. Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster, and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and herself."

Kelley is serving as the writer and showrunner. In addition to himself and Kidman, Per Saari, Bruna Papandrea and director Susanne Bier will also serve as executive producers."



The Adventure Starts Here!
I'm finally watching this series. I'm toward the end of episode 4 of 6. So far it's extremely compelling to watch and very binge-able, so I should be done by this time tomorrow, at the latest.

And although everyone's acting is stellar (Grant is SO good compared to all of his "lite" comic roles in the past that it's astounding to watch)... I'm finding Kidman a distraction. Not her acting, which is very convincing (I'm not sure whodunit yet at all, partly due to the great acting of all the principal players)... it's her LOOKS. She always looks like this porcelain doll, especially in this series. I find that extremely difficult to ignore any time she's on the screen.

This probably why I think her favorite role for me was as Virginia Woolf in The Hours. No porcelain doll there.

Well, I actually paused episode 4 to come here to see if there was already a thread. I'm surprised no one's been writing more in this thread, actually. Back to it! No spoilers here, please, for the next 24 hours.



This probably why I think her favorite role for me was as Virginia Woolf in The Hours. No porcelain doll there.
Mine too. Lovely movie.

I hated The Undoing. I didn’t believe in any of the characters.
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The Adventure Starts Here!
I get what you're saying. I keep reminding myself that all these main characters live in a bubble world far outside my own, and we're simply getting a peek into that bubble as it bursts.

The one scene in episode 4 that left me speechless (because of how it played out) was when Fraser (Grant) goes to visit Fernando. Fernando lets him in (!!), then does NOT beat him to a pulp. In fact, he asks if he wants to feed the baby and then proceeds to admit that it's been tough to love this baby.

Wait... what? WHO HAS A CONVERSATION LIKE THAT IN REAL LIFE? Nobody, that's who.

Throughout each episode, I keep thinking, "I bet the book is really good." Or, "This scene would play out SO well in a book where we might get glimpses into the minds of some of these characters."

Still, I think the acting is really good and holds my interest. Just a few lapses in the storytelling have befuddled me along the way. I'm curious about how that scene, in particular, plays out in the book. Or if it's there at all.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
I get what you're saying. I keep reminding myself that all these main characters live in a bubble world far outside my own, and we're simply getting a peek into that bubble as it bursts.

The one scene in episode 4 that left me speechless (because of how it played out) was when Fraser (Grant) goes to visit Fernando. Fernando lets him in (!!), then does NOT beat him to a pulp. In fact, he asks if he wants to feed the baby and then proceeds to admit that it's been tough to love this baby.

Wait... what? WHO HAS A CONVERSATION LIKE THAT IN REAL LIFE? Nobody, that's who.

Throughout each episode, I keep thinking, "I bet the book is really good." Or, "This scene would play out SO well in a book where we might get glimpses into the minds of some of these characters."

Still, I think the acting is really good and holds my interest. Just a few lapses in the storytelling have befuddled me along the way. I'm curious about how that scene, in particular, plays out in the book. Or if it's there at all.
I hope this isn't a spoiler, but to your observations on Fernando letting the guy in and such, I remember taking that bit ....hm. dangit. okok Imma add a tag here....

WARNING: "cuz paranoid" spoilers below
...taking that bit as showing just how submissive Fernando was. I took him for a push-over, and I figured at that time in the show that his wife was probably a manipulator of sorts dominating him in their lives. I don't remember if that feeling was ever confirmed or if it had been addressed before. I just don't remember. That was my gut feeling in the moment though, and because of that I don't remember questioning it all too much. Like, a writer's way of keeping a few plates spinning trying to suggest motive or whatever, keeping us guessing. The entire run was surreal for me. You described it well, I think, as dismissing oddities due to these people living in their own bubble as it bursts.
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I get what you're saying. I keep reminding myself that all these main characters live in a bubble world far outside my own, and we're simply getting a peek into that bubble as it bursts.
The scene that made no sense to me was when the nanny (or whatever she was - it’s been a while) walked around stark naked at the club in front of Kidman. Or wherever it was - a gym? Women do take off their clothes in locker rooms, but this scene made no sense at all.

Ditto some of the “journeys” various characters took in Manhattan. Didn’t Kidman say she was walking to Harlem? Nobody walks to Harlem especially decked out like Kidman. And the nanny left one evening event (in a lovely dress) to ride home on the subway. Very implausible.



I'm finally watching this series. I'm toward the end of episode 4 of 6. So far it's extremely compelling to watch and very binge-able, so I should be done by this time tomorrow, at the latest.

And although everyone's acting is stellar (Grant is SO good compared to all of his "lite" comic roles in the past that it's astounding to watch)... I'm finding Kidman a distraction. Not her acting, which is very convincing (I'm not sure whodunit yet at all, partly due to the great acting of all the principal players)... it's her LOOKS. She always looks like this porcelain doll, especially in this series. I find that extremely difficult to ignore any time she's on the screen.

This probably why I think her favorite role for me was as Virginia Woolf in The Hours. No porcelain doll there.

Well, I actually paused episode 4 to come here to see if there was already a thread. I'm surprised no one's been writing more in this thread, actually. Back to it! No spoilers here, please, for the next 24 hours.
I'm right where you are. Just finished episode 4.

In the main it's a good production, and holds my interest despite the fact that I knew the ending before watching it.
I'm not a Hugh Grant fan. Although he's done a creditable job of acting in this series, I just can't cotton him. To me he's better in comedy. I do think they wanted a guy to act as a sleaze or a sociopath, and he was a good choice for that.

I agree with your characterization of Kidman. She executive produced so I guess she could do what she wanted, but to me her long curly locks are off-putting. I opined in another thread that she evidently is a fan of Rapunzel's..

What surprised me about the production is that although it's an HBO series there's thankfully a modicum of gore, gutter language, and deviant sex-- all of which are HBO's usual fare. There are many instances of the F word used by people who make it seem pretentious, awkward, or incongruous.

Also Donald Sutherland is enjoyable in a clean shaven performance. The guy still has it at aged 85.



The Adventure Starts Here!
The scene that made no sense to me was when the nanny (or whatever she was - it’s been a while) walked around stark naked at the club in front of Kidman. Or wherever it was - a gym? Women do take off their clothes in locker rooms, but this scene made no sense at all.

Ditto some of the “journeys” various characters took in Manhattan. Didn’t Kidman say she was walking to Harlem? Nobody walks to Harlem especially decked out like Kidman. And the nanny left one evening event (in a lovely dress) to ride home on the subway. Very implausible.
I meant to mention this too. Beautiful thin women just strolling through parks in New York City at night? And she does this regularly? We get no sense that she is even carrying, like, mace or anything. (I would be.) Highly improbable.

Also, Elena Alves wasn't a nanny. She was simply a mom of a kid who also went to the Reardon School (plus the baby she has with Grant). Her kid got into the school on a scholarship, so their family is far, far below the strata of the rest of the folks at that school.

It was a gym, and she was clearly stalking Kidman/Grace by that point. She joined the auction committee to be near Grace (mostly because of the affair with her husband, I'm sure), and then nursed the baby at the table in front of everyone. Then paraded around naked in the locker room on purpose, also to just intimidate Kidman.

I finished the last two episodes while dinner was cooking. The ending was a bit anticlimactic, if you ask me. I had spent five and a half episodes...

WARNING: "spoilers" spoilers below
...thinking how any of a half dozen other characters could have committed the murder... only to find out it WAS him after all. Honestly... pffft. Clearly M. Night Shyamalan didn't direct or write this one.



Finished it last night. In the main it was a good production: cinematography, editing, etc. I thought Kidman looked silly. She seemed hypnotized half the time. I'm not a Hugh Grant fan, but I will say that he got better in the last couple of episodes.

The writing started off with a bang, then was a let down in the last episode. I actually laughed out loud at some of the dialogue and scene writing.

It would have been more interesting if the kid had done the murder...



The Adventure Starts Here!
It would have been more interesting if the kid had done the murder...
YES! Precisely! In fact, at the cliffhanger of, I believe, episode 4 (or was it 5?) where Grace finds the hammer in his violin case, I thought, THERE'S the twist we were waiting for.

But, um, nope.

I do wonder if the book ends things differently.



YES! Precisely! In fact, at the cliffhanger of, I believe, episode 4 (or was it 5?) where Grace finds the hammer in his violin case, I thought, THERE'S the twist we were waiting for.

But, um, nope.

I do wonder if the book ends things differently
.
According to the summary I read of the novel, the same guy did it, but it ends in a different fashion.



The Adventure Starts Here!
Then my assumption would be that...
WARNING: "spoilers?" spoilers below
he dies in the book. Or somebody else dies in his wake. Or both.