Pieces of Her

My god it is like pulling teeth or getting blood from a stone. There are 1.5 likeable characters out of 20 or so. Pointless dialogue ruins poignant moments. Depressing, stiff, irrelevant tripe and yet I watched it to the end. I've only got myself to blame.

Far too long for the content which makes it drag in places. I found the hopping around in time periods very frustrating and rather confusing which would be even worse if not watched in a pretty short timeframe ( in my case over 2 days).

Had it not been for Toni Colette I wouldn't have watched it to start with. But even though she's such a powerful actress it was still rather a disappointment but by no means as bad as the numerous 1 and 2 score ratings that some have given it imo.

Toni Collette plays Laura Oliver, a woman with secrets, which are exposed during a life and death situation beyond her control.

This 90 minute story has been stretched over 8 episodes, requiring long pauses, unnecessary diversions and constant illogical behaviour by the main characters. As others have written, the worst character is the daughter (played by Heathcote) who whines a lot and seems to have a permanent state of confusion etched upon her face. Other characters are thinly written; the dialogue is poor and the pacing is glacial. The whole thing is just disappointing.

As a side note, this is another example of a Netflix production where the shooting location (Sydney, Australia) looks nothing like the setting of the story (Georgia, USA). Everything from the streetscapes, the flora, the lighting - all is wrong and it's distracting. Many shows are shot in different locations than the story's setting, but surely there needs to be a mild resemblance to the actual.

Is this series finished? Hard to tell from the last episode but it does wrap up the main story line.

There's a good, slow reveal mystery here based around flashbacks to a time in the United States in the 1980's not covered much these days. It also revolves around abusive and manipulative men psychologically tormenting women much like your average Lifetime movie but it's better than one of those.

The main problem with this series is that the character we follow isn't the tormented personality played by Toni Collette but her daughter as we follow her frantic path of discovery about her mom's mysterious past. Unfortunately the daughter isn't given enough sympathetic characteristics to elevate her above a 30 year old screw-up. She's initially portrayed as helpless but suddenly becomes a pro at evading professional security goons out to get her. Since, unlike all the other main characters, we are given almost nothing about her (except that she's a drawing artist), it's very hard to follow and care. And the other characters are for the most part flawed people.

One of the earlier reviewers nailed it - it would have been a great 90 minute movie . The continual hoping back and forth between the past to present to past to present was annoying , distracting and uncalled for - the first episode could have set the stage for the remainder of the series far more enjoyable - also reducing the # of episodes to 6 would have helped the continuity and movement - One other reviewer said even Toni Collett couldn't save this series - actually she did - without her it was a 3 or less.