In close-up, individual pieces of tropical fruits are lacerated by the fast-swirling blades, churned together until their original forms cease to be.The nine broken souls that found themselves at Tranquillum are also looking to be transformed, each burdened with their grief, anger, mistrust and insecurities. They’re looking for a miracle, and something of a saviour in the form of the wellness resort’s enigmatic healer, Masha.They don’t want to be the damaged version of themselves that wound up the hinterland driveway, they want to be renewed. They just didn’t bank on being quite so challenged by Masha’s unconventional methods.Across eight episodes, each of the nine guests, as well as Masha and her staff will be forced to confront their greatest vulnerabilities and open themselves to the possibility of a different way of being.If that sounds like a thin story with limited plot momentum, you wouldn’t be wrong. But the appeal of Nine Perfect Strangers isn’t in the story but the character arcs – and the beauty of Byron Bay’s hinterland standing in for California doesn’t hurt either.RELATED: Nine Perfect Strangers’ Samara Weaving on dealing with her anxietiesThis is very much a character-driven production with the benefit of a glittering cast that oozes gravitas. You’d struggle to name too many other television productions with such a vast list of heavyweights.The top-tier talent of Melissa McCarthy, Nicole Kidman, Michael Shannon, Regina Hall, Bobby Cannavale and Luke Evans are joined by exciting and fresh younger stars including Samara Weaving, Manny Jacinto, Tiffany Boone, Melvin Gregg and Grace Van Patten, while local golden girl Asher Keddie is right at home in this repertory. The “strangers” are McCarthy’s Frances, a popular fiction novelist who was victim of a romance scam (McCarthy’s husband Ben Falcone makes a chuckly cameo) and whose latest manuscript has caused her publisher to buy out her contract.On the way to Tranquillum, she encounters Cannavale’s Tony, an incendiary former footballer with an addiction to anger as much as pills and booze.Jessica (Weaving) and Ben (Gregg) are a cashed-up young couple whose relationship has hit a rut while the high-strung Carmel (Hall) is desperately seeking help after her husband leaves her for a younger woman. Then there’s oily Lars (Evans), coming off a bad break-up but with an ulterior motive for his stay.RELATED: Melissa McCarthy roped Bobby Cannavale into Nine Perfect StrangersFinally, there’s the Marconi family – dad Napoleon (Shannon), mum Heather (Keddie) and daughter Zoe (Van Patten). Napoleon is perpetually optimistic and enthusiastic but how much of that is overcompensating for a family tragedy that all three Marconis have not processed?Kidman’s Masha is supposed to be the character which brings the interconnected characters stories together, but is, oddly, one of the least interesting people.Masha has received threats from an unknown figure that she will soon die, and we’re led to believe this has something to do with her pre-Tranquillum life as a hard-hearted corporate high-flyer, but the deliberate obfuscation of her character as someone with a mysterious agenda actually serves to distance her from the audience.In a series with such a large ensemble, there are always going to be some subplots that are more compelling than others, but it is disappointing that Kidman’s storyline fails to connect. RELATED: Nicole Kidman on Keith Urban’s reaction to Nine Perfect Strangers accentEven more so, that of the two main Tranquillum staff, Masha’s proteges Yao (Jacinto) and Delilah (Boone), whose arcs fall flat despite some notable intimate scenes.The standout character pairing has to be Frances and Tony, two people who immediately get their hackles up against each other but whose mutual hostility is slowly undone. McCarthy and Cannavale – who have shared the screen on three previous occasions – have an incredible spark you can’t stop watching. Both are masters at balancing comedy with drama and they walk that fine tonal line with ease.And an actor such as Shannon has total command of his character and space, whether he’s goofily singing or tripped out or having an emotional breakdown.NED-3498-What-to-Watch-Article-BannersThere’s a lot of skill and talent on Nine Perfect Strangers – and behind the scenes as well with a Liane Moriarty novel as the source material, adapted by David E. Kelley and John Henry Butterworth and directed by Jonathan Levine (Warm Bodies, 50/50).But it’s the power of those individual performances that elevate the series, rather than any emotional connective tissue – at least in the first six episodes out of eight made available for review.Whether the series will pay off on a thematic level in its exploration of grief, trauma and psychological damage isn’t yet clear, and you want it to be clearer three-quarters of the way in. But what is clear is the sheer amount of talent on screen.Like that smoothie, the individual pieces may end up having more value than the swirled together whole.Nine Perfect Strangers premieres on Amazon Prime Video from Friday, August 20.Share your movies and TV obsessions | @wenleima
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