Talking About: Nine Perfect Strangers
The mini-series Nine Perfect Strangers has the same premise as the best-selling Liane Moriarty book upon which it’s based: nine people, all in need of “fixing,” land at an exclusive health spa, run by a famously mysterious woman named Masha. She starts breaking them down almost immediately, but it’s clear that the spa is not all it seems. What weirdness is afoot? Four episodes have dropped so far on Amazon Prime but new ones will land every week. Its powerhouse cast include Nicole Kidman, Melissa McCarthy, Asher Keddie and Bobby Cannavale.
Ute Junker What did you think of the character Masha, who is really at the heart of this story?
Rachelle Unreich There’s a lot of talk before we meet Masha about this mysterious woman who runs the health resort Tranquillium, and how she changes people. So she needs to be portrayed as larger than life, as someone who is both charismatic and perhaps a little repellent. I think that was achieved! I’m a Nicole Kidman fan in general, but the costume definitely gave me Elsa vibes.
Marina Go In a world where reviews are everything, it would be hard to believe that someone like Masha wouldn’t have put people off – unless her methods really do work?
RU In making her beautiful but weird-looking, the filmmakers were using a device to tell the audience right off the bat that something’s not quite right here.
MG I read the book, and Nicole Kidman is playing the character pretty true to my expectations.
UJ The way the show starts, if I’d landed in that quagmire – those guests, that host – I would have headed straight back home. I’m guessing the idea is that they’re all so desperate for help, they’re going to stick it out. Does the vibe of the show match that of the book?
MG It’s a bit too early to tell. The book was far creepier from the outset.
RU Yeah, I read that the TV show is meant to fall between genres – it’s not quite a thriller or horror. I like the idea that Tranquillium curates the guests to bounce off and complement each other. It’s like Tinder for health spas, minus the hook-ups. Or, for all I know, including the hook-ups, once we get past episode three.
MG The way Liane Moriarty wrote about their arrival in the book, made you feel that something wasn’t right about the place. I remember being terrified but couldn’t look away.
RU At the beginning there’s a lot of explanatory dialogue with the characters. I mean, within her first 105 seconds onscreen (I went back and timed it), we found out that Frances, played by Melissa McCarthy, was: a) duped by a grifter who broke her heart, and b) a best-selling author with an unpublished book that’s been rejected. I wanted that information to be eked out slowly.
UJ Yeah, with a show like this, part of the appeal is finding out the secrets of each character but I know those now. I'm wondering why I should keep watching.
MG Yes, that happened to Frances in the book, but you learn more about her as the narrative unfolds. She is my favourite character in the book and Melissa McCarthy is how I imagined her.
UJ I think of Liane Moriarty’s work as offering really acute insights into real life, but that’s missing from this.
MG It’s hard to see how Masha is going to break the characters down. In the book, early on, she calls them to a central location, locks the doors and keeps them there for what feels like a whole day and night. That brings out every issue – insecurity, heartbreak, etc. But in the series, the main thing she’s doing is fiddling with their drinks and making them do potato sack races.
RU I wonder if she wished she got the discount rate, like Asher Keddie’s family did. Still, the spa looks glorious. It was a bit weird how it was supposedly set in California, yet it was surrounded by rainforest and staffed with quite a few Aussies. But that aside, how beautiful? I wanted to stay. I don’t care if there’s a weird Russian woman who’s going to start a mysterious protocol on me.
UJ It’s so obviously the Northern Rivers to me that it makes me giggle to think they’re passing it off as California. And really, the only characters I’d feel happy about being stuck at a resort with are Frances and the daughter. Is it just me, or are the men particularly objectionable? Tony is a nightmare, and so is the English guy.
RU Yao, the guy who works there, Manny Jacinto, is certainly not objectionable.
MG The character of Yao is the only likeable staff member in the book from my recollection.
RU Yeah, I don’t like Delilah and how she seems to always be putting her hand on someone and delivering positive affirmations. But I do like her hair.
UJ Having read the book, Marina, can you imagine an adaptation done differently?
MG My feeling when reading it was that the spa had former glory but didn’t look like an Aman resort.
UJ But maybe that’s what people love. We’re all so desperate for an escape right now. I haven’t done a retreat like that but I’ve spent a lot of time in tropical spas and resorts. They often do attract people at vulnerable times in their lives – as well as people who just have ridiculous expectations. It’s a really great premise for a series, there’s so much material.
RU How do you think it is, timing-wise, at this stage of the pandemic? At the beginning we were all happy to watch the sordid tiger series, but now I just want a palate cleanser. I watched Coda on the weekend and that hit the spot; I also can’t wait to start the second series of Ted Lasso. I wanna see happy people!
MG Hacks is also brilliant.
UJ I don’t need happy people, but I do need people I care about. Not too many here. But I do think the girl playing Zoe (Grace Van Patten) is putting in the best performance of the entire cast.
RU What’s your favourite part of the show?
UJ It’s giving me really bad travel envy. It all looks so lush.
MG My favourite things: Melissa McCarthy, the decor of the rooms and the leafy surrounds. The linen sheets, the breakfast smoothies.
RU I like some of the themes: that beauty and fame, for example, don’t mean that you’re spared pain and suffering; that everyone suffers; that healing and redemption don’t usually take place in a vacuum. But I wish there were more glamorous kaftans, like in The White Lotus.
Nine Perfect Strangers is streaming on Amazon Prime.