Review by Ceri Wheeldon
Amazon Prime released the first three episodes of this new series starring Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy over the weekend, and I think it will be an interesting one to watch.
Nine strangers arrive at a wellness retreat , looking to transform their lives during their ten day stay. The retreat is run by the enigmatic Masha. The nine ‘strangers’ are all struggling with aspects of their lives, including bereavement, abandonment and lack of success in their professional lives. As the ‘strangers’ start to open up about their lives you start to wonder if the group has been brought together by accident or design – and if by design for what reason.
The cast is excellent – and it is good to see actresses over 50 (Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy) in starring roles. My only criticism of Nicole Kidman is that when she is on screen I find myself distracted by trying to work out what she has had ‘done’ to her face. She looks so different to a few a years ago but it is hard to pin down quite why!
Putting ‘tweakments’ to one side the series is an interesting concept. I know from experience of travelling on press trips etc how you can easily get pulled into a bubble with a new group of people in a short period of time, so it will be interesting to see how relationships develop between the strangers over their ten day stay. In the first three episodes we are only scratching the surface in terms of the issues each is facing. There is a sense that there is also more to Masha and her seemingly loyal assistants than meets the eye so it will be interesting to see how that scenario unfolds.
There are 8 episodes in total with just three released at the time of writing.
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