‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ series review: A fabulous Kathryn Hahn anchors this emotional and engaging show

Kathryn Hahn in a scene from ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ | Photo Credit: Disney+Hotstar

It was a difficult and triggering watch – especially the penultimate one at the end. Life has a way of being beautiful and broken and that’s why fantasy has so many fans. It’s easier to deal with the shuffling of ravenous zombies or fire-breathing CGI dragons than the fact that the last words spoken to a loved one were spiteful and angry.

Claire Pearce’s (Kathryn Hahn) life is falling apart. A promising writer, Claire received an advance many moons ago to write the Great American Novel she hasn’t finished yet. Her marriage to musician Danny (Quentin Player) is in its final stages and she’s seeing a smug therapist named Mel (Tijuana Ricks). Claire believes that her teenage daughter, Rae (TANJIN Crawford), hates her.

Claire is also haunted by memories of her troubled past. He dearly loved his mother, Frankie (Merritt Weaver), and is yet to come to terms with her sudden death at age 45 from cancer. Her brother, Lucas (Owen Painter), chooses the drug route to ease the pain of the loss. Her father was an abusive alcoholic who either abandoned his family or Frankie ran away from him.

When Claire’s friend asks her to help answer letters for the online advice column, Dear Sugar, she feels that she is hardly the right person to give advice, given that her own life is not connected to the toilet. How low is it? However, she gives it a shot and through the questions she is asked, she looks back at her life and answers it as honestly as she can.

Based on the 2012 book by Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on love and life from Dear SugarComprised of her essays from the column, the show moves through time as young Claire (Sarah Pidgeon) marries Jess (Johnny Berchtold) too early, goes off to college, makes her angry choices, which include terrible sex. Funeral Parlor, her battle with heroin, her meeting with Danny, and the birth of Rae.

In the present day, Claire has to deal with nosy colleagues (ELIZABETH HINKLER) at her day job at a nursing home and forget about trysts with Uber drivers (JULIAN MARLON SAMANI). Giving away Rae’s college funds to Lucas without consulting Danny puts further strain on her marriage. Rae faces her own challenges as her best friend, the beautiful and entitled Montana (Annessa Jacobs), pulls her chain for her amusement.

Claire’s friend and fellow writer Amy (Michaela Watkins) signs her up as 50 for a writer’s retreat run by renowned author, Hayes McCann (Tim Roth). ^th Birthday present. Claire hopes to meet the author who wrote her an encouraging letter when she was starting out.

Reese Witherspoon, who serves as executive producer alongside a bunch of others including Laura Dern, Strayed, and Hahn, is quite the production powerhouse, being the name behind some fantastic television ( big little lie) and movies ( gone girl, idea to develop beautiful little things came during 2014 build WildBased on Strayed’s memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trailfor which both Witherspoon and Dern received Academy Award nominations.

To turn a series of essays, which was equal parts a memoir and an advice column, into an engaging show is a commendable feat. According to creator Liz Tigelaar, beautiful little things This is believed to be an alternate version of Strayed’s life if she had not gone on the hike in detail. Wild, This lends extra weight to the episode ‘The Ghost Ship’ where, answering a man who asks the Chinese when is the right time to have children, Claire speaks of a sister ship of choices we haven’t made. Who travels with us.

His closing argument for our choices, whatever they may be, is to “do nothing but salute her (sister ship) from shore,” providing a degree of comfort to the many “maybe shoulders” in our lives. . And yes, Hahn is fabulous and anchors the messy story.

Tiny Beautiful Things is currently streaming on Disney+ Hotstar