(Mini Series) The Undoing - Bright Start with Wonderful Performance from its Main Cast, Some Predictable Twists and not Entirely Satisfying Ending

I have been meaning to watch this series when it was first released almost 2 months ago, but as usual I waited till it was completed before starting. I forgotten about it until there was news about it few days ago, so I decided to watch the whole series yesterday on a public holiday. Now let's get into it.

Brief Story Line

Grace (Nicole Kidman - Aquaman, Paddington etc) and Jonathan Fraser (Hugh Grant - The Gentlemen, About a Boy etc) were rich couple living in New York with their son Henry (Noah Jupe - Ford v Ferrari, The Titan etc) who was educated in a very expensive & exclusive private school Reardon. Grace herself was a successful psychiatrist and the only daughter of the wealthy Franklin Reinhardt (Donald Sutherland - Ad Astra, Pride and Prejudice etc), while Jonathan was a well known oncologist. In her spare time, Grace became part of Reardon's auction comittee together with several other mothers including her best friend Sylvia (Lily Rabe - Vice, American Horror Story anthology series etc) and a new young mother named Elena Alves (Matilda De Angelis).

Things suddenly turned chaotic for everyone after a horrific murder happened on one of the person in Reardon. As detective Joe Mendoza (Édgar Ramírez - The Girl on The Train, Carlos etc) and his partner investigated, they would find that it might be involving people close to Reardon. The case also garnered huge public attention, especially when it went to trial and a famous lawyer Haley Fitzgerald (Noma Dumezweni) was hired to defend the accused.

So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this psychological thriller mini series.

End of Brief Story Line

This mini series was very short. It only has 6 episodes with roughly 50 minutes to a little over 1 hour duration each. The first episode had an intriguing opening with a nice build up to the main plot. The second episode was also interesting, and kept us wondering on where the story was going. However, as I proceed with the 3rd and 4th episodes, somehow I felt that it lost a bit of its momentum. The episodes did not seem to provide something except only towards the end. But once I reached the 5th and 6th episodes, I could feel the rush and suspense towards the truth.

It is understandable for psychological thriller to focus on the characters involved and a gradual build up to the climax. In this case, I thought the story telling was quite well done but what I really liked the most was the characterization, in particular by the two lead stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant. They were awesome in portraying their characters. In addition to them, I was also amazed by the young Noah Jupe who provided a mature performance for his age and of course Donald Sutherland also did fantastic job. There was 1 moment where he gave a truly chilling performance. 

Aside from the wonderful acting by most of the cast, I also loved the mystery surrounding the murder case. There were few twists which were nice though a bit predictable. However, I was a bit not satisfied with the ending. I thought it lacked a grand final twist, so when it ended, I felt it was not as spectacular as I had hoped for. Not to mention there seemed to be an important fact that was not clear when the truth was revealed. There was a supposedly major surprising twist towards the end, but it was so obvious that it did not feel surprising for me. Btw, the series was classified for 18+ and it did have disturbing scene and nudity scenes.

Other factors that I like here was the musical score that was lovely plus the nice opening credit, and the courtroom scenes. The series was written and produced by David E. Kelley (creator of successful series like Ally McBeal, The Practice, Boston Legal, Big Little Lies and many others), so I could understand why the courtroom scenes were interesting to watch. Oh all the episodes here were directed by Susanne Bier (director of Birdbox and few other award winning films). And I also noticed that the series was based on the novel titled You Should Have Known written by Jean Hanff Korelitz.

Overall this was a good psychological thriller mystery mini series. It started of quite brightly with a bit of a slow down in the middle but having a good enough conclusion, albeit not too satisfying personally for me. It has the extra quality of the wonderful performance from the cast and some nice courtroom drama scenes. So if you are looking for mini series with such attributes, you can definitely try this one.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars