The Beautiful Lie

I stumbled upon this by chance and within the first five minutes I was hooked and couldn't stop watching.

I found this series to be elegant, funny, heartbreaking and thought provoking - I was laughing in one episode and in tears in the next. It dealt with love, loss, death, life, birth and depression with humour and tenderness. It was hard to feel angry at those who were written to be just so human.

Produced by the dream team of John Edwards and Imogen Banks the witty but real dialogue, the amazing cinematography, the soundtrack and the actors made this one of the best pieces of Australian TV I've seen in a while (and I'm Australian).

Simply put, I loved it. Can't wait to watch it again.....

A beautiful son, husband and home.. We all have our youth to explore fantasies and passionate love that will never work, but the selfish main character made me sick. I love Sarah Snook, and I do believe this series is worth watching... but man, did she ruin her own life or what? I feel no empathy or sympathy for her. What you reap is what you sow.

The review I just read suggests that I watched a different mini-series. However, that is not so. The difference of opinion, fortunately, is just that. Some people like me liked it, others like the person who gave it two stars obviously did not. It is not high-brow, but it is interesting and entertaining, and at least to me, that's enough. Sarah Snook deserves good scripts, and this one probably did not stretch her. Worth a look and a listen because some of the music is very interesting, and I found the emotional tension quite realistic. The irrational behaviours exhibited by several of the characters were believable, and not unlike what I have seen in real life. Not all productions are going to be highly cerebral, and that is alright because sometimes it is entertaining to just watch, not think too much, and enjoy watching reasonable actors and actresses.

I am very much enjoying this mini series. I have never read or seen Anna Karenina so I am not comparing it to that. I see this as a very realistic, and rather stylish and moody take on cheating and sudden attraction. Then chronicling the destruction and fall out which follows. I feel like they have not made it look pretty or fun or easy either. Everyone has been dramatically affected by the main characters choice to embark on an affair. The obvious people like her husband and little boy, but also the people all around her that she hurt. She cries in episode 5, I have lost my family, meaning all the extra people who form our families, not just her blood family and ex. Skeet, the man she cheats with, is interesting to me. I like the actor and I have never seen him before. What I found so interesting is how she meets his mother on a plane ride just before she meets him and the Mother clearly tells her how Skeet never stays with women. He moves on and loses interest quickly. It was like she got this very intimate run down on the guy from his Mom, but her sexual attraction blitzed her brain. I found the side story of the insecure young women who was engaged to Skeet and then finds love after, and the alcoholic brother and his brother moving and well done. There is one episode left and I have no idea how this is all going to turn out, but I am looking forward to it.

Allegedly a re-working of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, The Beautiful Lie has a great ambition. Some of the script, parts of the acting and occasional moments achieve something really worthwhile, but as a whole it isn't satisfying or believable.

More than that, none of the characters really engages us as viewers, so we may want to find out who ends up with whom, and why, but we don't get the sense that any of them are real.

The contrast with Tolstoy is vast: his moral and psychological vision was profound and engaging, whereas The Beautiful Lie takes us into a world of mostly trivia and lust, disguised as love.

I suspect this was a 6-part series that got extended. That makes it even less likely to retain our attention.