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Pieces Of Her Netflix Review

Still from Pieces Of Her

Pieces Of Her is a thriller series based on the novel from Karin Slaughter. It spans 8 episodes and is available to watch at Netflix. The series follows Andrea Oliver (Bella Heathcote) as she finds out about the truth behind her mother’s (Toni Collette) past.

Spoiler Review

Starring Toni Collette a Primetime Emmy Award winner, Pieces Of Her promises a lot but did not quite deliver its expectations. Pieces Of Her is meant to be a thriller that reveal pieces of information slowly throughout the whole series. However, the series introduced information in a manner that is difficult to digest for the audience. Views of articles on screens are shot momentarily without giving the audience the amount of time to digest the information. There are times when I had to pause the series (thank God for OTT!) to read the articles and truly take in the details of the series presented to me. 

Besides this, characters were brought into the screen without introduction leaving the audience puzzled at the identity of the character. An example was when Charlie Bass first made an appearance at Laura’s house. We did not get a sense about who Charlie is until Andy visited him and talked about their relationship.

Still from Pieces Of Her
Toni Collette plays Laura Oliver, a breast cancer survivor who has a dark past

Although Toni Collette is the main actor who might draw audiences to watch this series, the main character is actually Andy Oliver, played by Bella Heathcote. Toni Collette’s character, Laura Oliver gets less screen time and had less developments compared to Andy. As a lead, Andy is a very difficult character to root for. She is seen constantly making rash and illogical decisions from time to time. Albeit being more courageous in the middle few episodes, she mostly project herself as a weak and senseless character. For example, she tried to burn down the house because she was afraid of Nick who had a gun, knowing full well he could still threaten her with the gun after her attempt. 

The casting also did not make much sense for Toni Collete’s character, Jane Queller. Her younger self looked nothing like her current self, with a lot of difference in facial structures. I have to admit- when the photo of the young Jane Queller was first shown in episode 2, I had no idea who that is until Andy mentioned it was a photo of her mother. The other castings, for example the older and young Jasper Queller, is alright, but the casting of one of the main character feels like a total miss.

Verdict

4 / 10

Possibly just a poor adaptation of a very good book. 

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