‘The Undoing’s Nicole Kidman & Hugh Grant Tease ‘Twisty’ HBO Thriller
Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman) has a duplex on NYC’s Upper East Side, a successful therapy practice and an enviable husband, renowned pediatric oncologist Jonathan (Hugh Grant) in HBO’s The Undoing.
Seems like, as Grace herself says, “the perfect life” — until an acquaintance dies suddenly and violently, unraveling the couple’s carefully constructed world. “Nothing is what it seems,” Kidman says of the “twisty” thriller.
Based on the Jean Hanff Korelitz bestseller You Should Have Known, The Undoing reteams Big Little Lies producer David E. Kelley with its Emmy-winning star, Kidman, for another whodunit set in a privileged world where image is everything.
The characters, says Kelley, “draw false narratives about who they [are], who their partners [are]…giving rise to delusions that have a surprising tenacity.”
If you haven’t seen 2018’s A Very English Scandal, it might be a shock to see rom-com king Grant in morally ambiguous mode (“You don’t know if I’m evil or not,” the actor says), but Oscar winner Susanne Bier, who directs all six episodes, says she had the “intuitive sense” to cast him opposite Kidman: “There is a certain matchmaking fun about it.”
We could watch this messed-up union for several seasons.
The Undoing, Series Premiere, May 2020, HBO