‘Little Fires Everywhere’ on Hulu is ferocious
Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington are on fire.
Not literally, of course. As far as we know, the actresses are not sending up smoke clouds. But both used their considerable talents to set Hulu’s fascinating new miniseries “Little Fires Everywhere” positively ablaze.
“Fires” (adapted from Celeste Ng’s 2017 bestseller) and its two producer/stars not only meet but easily exceed towering expectations. “Fires” (streaming March 18) is the successful meeting of style and substance, combining great acting, superb costuming and production design with sharp scripts that expand on the acclaimed source material. Set in the 1990s, every frame, every line, every pair of high-waisted jeans burns with meaning and drama that ranges from hyperserious to soapy, with delicious aplomb.
“Fires” is about what happens when the delicate balance in the postcard-perfect suburb of Shaker Heights, Ohio, is thrown out of whack by the clash of two families. At the series’ outset in 1998, we see white, rich, starkly blonde Elena Richardson (Witherspoon), her husband, Bill (Joshua Jackson), and three of their four teen children watching their perfectly appointed Mcmansion aflame against the morning sky. The family doesn’t know what happened, but the fire department knows one thing: Someone set little fires all over the house. The Richardsons, and the cops, suspect the family’s rebellious teen, Izzy (Megan Stott).
The series flashes back a year to the arrival of artist and single mother Mia
Warren (Washington) and her daughter Pearl (Lexi Underwood) to Shaker. Out of a sense of guilt and embarrassment, Elena leases half of the family’s rental property to Mia and sends her younger son Moody (Gavin Lewis) to befriend Pearl.
The teen quickly takes to Moody and the elder Richardson children, jock Trip (Jordan Elsass) and Homecoming Queen Lexie (Jade Pettyjohn). Pearl idolizes Lexie and crushes on Trip (despite Moody’s obvious feelings for her). Mia, who has experienced nothing but condescension and racism from Elena, takes a job as the Richardson’s housekeeper to keep an eye on Pearl, who is increasingly envious of the family’s affluent, materialistic life.
Elena and Mia begin to clash, on everything from their parenting styles – Mia encourages Izzy’s artsy grunge rebellion, while Elena tries to scold her daughter into wearing pearls – to a custody fight between a Chinese immigrant mother and the white couple trying to adopt her baby. Mia’s secretive past and Elena’s obsessive need for answers (she is a part-time reporter with unachieved ambition) escalate their conflict far beyond arguments and harsh words.
At first glance, it feels as if Witherspoon has typecast herself into the role of Elena as a pushy, rich, suburban mother, like the one she played in HBO’S “Big Little Lies.” But the deeper into “Fires” you get, the fewer similarities there are between Elena and Madeline Martha Mackenzie. In “Lies,” she was brash and casual; Elena is uptight and so formal that a lack of matching tartan sneakers in a family Christmas photo is enough to inspire a fullthroated meltdown. By inviting a comparison of the two, Witherspoon forces the viewer to confront stereotypes about mothers and what roles actresses of a certain age can play.
Washington excels here, too, and her intense performance is constantly on the verge of boiling over into rage. Mia taps into Washington’s natural strengths as an actor – her best work is operating in extremes. With equal fervor, Washington hits the emotional high notes of Mia’s anger and the stoic low notes in the reserved persona she presents to the world.
As the interweaving plots of “Fires” slowly unravel over eight episodes (seven were made available for review), the story’s complexity becomes deeply addictive. “Fires” is the rare multigenerational story in which the teen drama is as compelling as what’s going on with the adults. Even as the fate of a baby separated from its mother is debated and marriages are tested, the “Fires” writers craft authentic story arcs for the four Richardson kids with high stakes, in the way that every hiccup (romantic or otherwise) feels like life and death when you are awash with adolescent hormones and emotions.
The series offers a nuanced look at racial relations through Lexie and her boyfriend Brian (Stevonte Hart), a black teen who becomes increasingly angry with Lexie’s constant but subtle racism. She doesn’t “see” color – but he watches her softly demean black classmates, drive-thru workers and even him.
“Fires” puts a microscope on the American dream of a car in every driveway and a chicken in every pot. Shaker appears to be the ideal American suburb, perfect in every way, until the cracks begin to show in the veneer of fastidiously mowed lawns and fairytale homecoming dances.
The characters may live in a Clinton-era fantasy of a post-racial America, but the tenor of scenes about race, in addition to class, motherhood and sexuality, feel painfully relevant. In one argument, Mia points out the difference between the two women: “You didn’t make good choices, you had good choices.”