What's Wrong with Play Back with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant

This time, instead of Jean-Marc Vallee, all the episodes were directed by Suzanne Bier ("The Night Administrator") - a slightly less pretentious, but also experienced and respected director. But given the similarity of topics, the same performer of the leading role, screenwriter and channel, comparisons cannot be avoided.

And, alas, "Play Back" loses to its predecessor in almost everything: the idea looks simpler, and the turns are often predictable. Only the dramatic part and the beautiful shooting save it.

Mediocre thriller

The plot focuses on Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman) - a successful psychotherapist from the upper class of New York. She is happily married to pediatric oncologist Jonathan (Hugh Grant) and is raising a precocious son, Henry (Noah Joop). Her life seems to be just a fairy tale. But everything changes after the appearance of sexy Latin American Elena (Matilda De Angelis).

Soon the girl is brutally murdered. And at the same time, Grace realizes that she knew practically nothing about her spouse. Now her world is crumbling, and the confused heroine does not understand what to believe in her.

The plot seems to be typical for a detective thriller. Moreover, the resemblance to the "Big Little Lies" is obvious: in the existing company of girlfriends a new one appears, clearly from the lower class. And the crime takes place after the charity ball. But still, this is not self-copying, but just a standard move that has been used dozens of times in literature and cinema. Even it can be presented in an interesting way. Play Back initially sees great potential for creating an oppressive atmosphere of suspense.

But, unfortunately, this time Kelly gets too carried away with stereotypes that interfere with the perception of history. In Big Little Lies, the screenwriter has already proven that he can look into the dark corners of the life of the elite. But now he just has nothing to add.

Grace's life is shown to be too luxurious: stunning dresses, techniques, an eternally smiling husband who is sad only because of dying children. Even the soundtrack with Vivaldi's composition is played at full volume. After all, here is everything to the maximum.

But this world is empty. Apart from the main conflict, the authors paint the rest with strokes only. Yes, the rich are cruel, they hide a lot and are ready to defend themselves in not the most honest ways. Only Grace looks alive among them.

And more importantly, the opposition, which is hinted at at the very beginning, is simply forgotten. Elena seems to be a person destroying the ostentatious idyll of high society. The way she embarrasses others with her words and actions is reminiscent of another sensational dramatic project "And fires are smoldering everywhere." There, the poor Mia Warren turned respectable society inside out. But in the TV series "Play Back" Elena, and her husband is assigned only the role of victims. There is nothing to say about the heroes except that poor immigrants suffer from wealthy white men.

Such sketchiness makes it difficult to believe in the world of the series. If the flashes of traumatic memories of the heroines Nicole Kidman and Shailene Woodley brought brightness and intensity to "Big Little Lies", then here they seem to be only artistic inserts that dilute the plot, but do not create any tension.

But emotional drama

If we digress from the discordant canvas and pay attention only to the main characters, then "Play Back" appears to be one of the most emotional dramas of 2020. In this sense, it can only be compared with the project "I know it's true" with Mark Ruffalo.

Play Back tells about an illusion in which each person lives to one degree or another. Grace trusts her spouse, as she does in a normal relationship. And suddenly he finds out that for a long time he deceived her literally in everything. Moreover, everyone around her lies to the woman. She cannot trust either a close friend or even her own father.

As if to counterbalance "Big Little Lies", where Kidman's heroine herself with all her might denied her husband's tendency to violence, Grace's delusions are very believable. She even directly tells the detective that she would not live with her husband if he was cruel.

Grace's confusion is one of the most truthful and emotional plot lines. A woman is either ready to hand over a loved one to the police, then she makes every effort to justify.

Here we must pay tribute to the talent of Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant. The drama is built on their play. Actors perform in familiar, but incredibly suitable images. Grace, it would seem, will be able to withstand any blows, but the camera is not in vain so often snatches out close-ups of her reddened eyes. She just doesn't know what to do. And Jonathan is the hero who can only be hated until the moment when he starts smiling. It is impossible to doubt the character's sincerity. Let him say conflicting things.

The incredible duo is complemented by the character of Donald Sutherland - Grace's father. This is an aristocrat who can be very emotional and caring, but with one glance he will scare even the viewer at the screen, not to mention the heroes.

And we can already assume that each of these actors will deservedly be among the favorites of all kinds of TV awards. The series is worth watching, if only for the sake of their vivid play.

Predictable detective

The repeatedly mentioned "Big Little Lies" also delighted with a secret: having seen the crime in the very first episode, the viewer did not know either the name of the killer, or even the identity of the deceased. The intrigue was maintained with the help of non-linear storytelling: the entire subsequent series told the background of events, and in the finale, the audience was informed that they were looking in the wrong place all this time.

Play Back refers to a more standard genre move. Here everything happens linearly: a murder investigation instantly identifies the main suspect, but then new evidence and versions will emerge. This is how the authors manage to hook the viewer. Each episode ends with a cliffhanger, making you wait for the sequel. But if you think about it, this intrigue is not very important.

Whichever of the suspects is guilty, the main villain of the story has already been identified. And a more significant role is played by a change in attitudes towards him, and not justice. Therefore, everyone who is in charge of the investigation and the trial is a strict detective, who is so insolent with representatives of the elite, a cynical lawyer - only functions that allow the characters to develop.

But the triumph of visual aesthetics

Perhaps the greatest merit of HBO, which produces many drama and detective series, is that the channel teaches to love not only the plot, but also the picture. You can relate to True Detective, Euphoria and Sharp Objects as you like, but these are all incredibly aesthetic projects.

"Play Back" will definitely add to the list of TV series that you want to take apart into screenshots. It's enough to mention here that Anthony Dod Mantle was the cameraman for the project, filming Antichrist for Lars Von Trier and Trance for Danny Boyle.

Together with Suzanne Bier, he manages to present an exaggerated luxury not vulgarly, but very gracefully - Nicole Kidman's outfits alone are worth something. Shooting from above and flying cameras over the streets allow you to feel the full scale of a big city, where people do not care about each other, and the pressing crowd.

And the next moment the camera switches to a close-up of the heroine's gaze. And this without any words conveys her loneliness and weakness. When Grace's world collapses, the warm tones that filled the frame at the start are replaced by cold blue. And the inserts with a brutal murder seem to be very short, but they reflect the entire horror of the crime better than if a large scene was allocated for it.

In visual terms, "Play Back" is built perfectly: here the picture combines the beauty and hidden emotions of the characters.

Perhaps, if Kelly, together with Valle, had not once filmed "Big Little Lies", then the new series could have been treated more positively. But when watching, you constantly feel that the screenwriter has decided to play on the same theme again, but has lost something very important: the right combination of genres.

Therefore, Play Back seems like just a successful drama that rests on actors and beauty, but gets confused and stalled when it comes to plot development. The viewer will enjoy watching it for six weeks, but the series will not mark the beginning of a new era.