The INSIDER Summary:"Big Little Lies" is HBO's next big miniseries.It's the heir apparent to "Gone Girl."It's a murder mystery where you don't know who was murdered.For as long as there's been a "Gone Girl," publishers have tried to sell us on "the next 'Gone Girl.'" Whether it's "The Girl on the Train" or "The Woman in the Cabin," twisty crime thrillers with female protagonists who aren't who they seem have been all the rage.One contender for "Gone Girl"-dom was "Big Little Lies," a novel written by Liane Moriarty, which came out a few months before David Fincher's 2014 movie adaptation of Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl."Moriarty has long been a successful thriller writer. Her novel "The Husband's Secret" was a hit in 2013. But "Big Little Lies" became her most famous work by the time it was picked up for an HBO miniserieswith an all-star cast of Reese Witherspoon,Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Alexander Skarsgrd, Laura Dern, Adam Scott, and Zo Kravitz. And now that it's here (the first episode airs Sunday night on HBO), in a faithful adaptation, it's clearly the proper heir to "Gone Girl."Like "Gone Girl," "Big Little Lies" is a mystery with an unconventional structure. The story is set around a community of extraordinarily wealthy mothers and their kids in a California preschool. Forward-flashes tell us that someone is going to be murdered, but we don't know who will be killed, why they'll bekilled, or how they'll killed. It's a murder thriller where we haven't even seen spilled blood."Big Little Lies" holds back even more than "Gone Girl." It's mostly concerned with its characters' domestic dramas, giving us no scenes with snooping cops or scraps of evidence. There are only secrets, misbehaviors, and rivalries.The show uses the impending murder to make everyone suspicious. Is the high-strung mother who sits on the board of PayPal just protective of her daughter, or is she trying to destroy everyone in her path' Is the preschooler who denies choking a classmate a lying sociopath, or is his accuser just mistaken' When is a person's quirk nefarious, and when are we overreacting'They're difficult questions to answer, and it helps that the show is so well-acted. Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern, especially, are highlights. Shailene Woodley is perfectly cast as a member of the mother group who doesn't quite know where her seat is at the table.Alexander Skarsgrd is alternately menacing and inscrutable, as usual. And Adam Scott has a surprisingly moving dramatic role as the husband of Reese Witherspoon's character, who anchors the plot.It becomes harder to spot the villain when everyone is so darnrich. One of the best parts of "Big Little Lies" is indulging in the home design porn and designer clothing in every scene. It seems in this series, everyone's kitchen has two huge marble islands, and everyone has a perfect view of the Pacific Ocean outside of every window.It's a great way to live, but the fact that it's so far removed from the daily lives of its viewers makes it seem like something isn't quite right. It's a little like "The Talented Mr. Ripley," where everyone is so wealthy that you suspect none of them would have a problem hiding a dead body if they needed to.The knottiness of the issue, and the fact that "Big Little Lies" is a genuinely gripping thriller, promise to make the show just as much as a discussion piece as "Gone Girl" was as it unfolds over seven episodes. It's somewhere between high pulp and class drama, and everyone will be talking about it."Big Little Lies" will debut on HBO February 19 at 9 p.m. EST.SEE ALSO:The rise and fall (and rise) of M. Night Shyamalan's career in one chartJoin the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: Mexican architects visualized Trump's proposed $25 billion wall to show how unrealistic it would be
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