Nine Perfect Strangers review: A gripping wellness retreat drama

WHEN your life is falling to pieces, what solutions might you seek to get yourself out of that dark place – and how far are you willing to trust someone who seems to have all of the answers?

Nine Perfect Strangers, a new eight-part series based on the book of the same name by Liane Moriarty, inhabits some of this difficult territory. It is rooted around ideas like the possibility of curing depression with spiritual rituals and mindfulness. The miniseries doesn’t exactly provide answers on what does and doesn’t work or the science behind it, but it is a gripping watch nonetheless.

The show follows the journeys of nine people who arrive at health and wellness resort Tranquillum House for a luxury 10-day retreat, away from the stresses of city life. Each guest is seeking an escape from their life for various reasons: Napoleon and Heather Marconi and their daughter Zoe, for example, are still grieving after the suicide of Zoe’s twin brother a few years before, glamorous couple Jessica and Ben’s marriage is hanging by a thread, while Frances’s career as a romance novelist looks to be heading for the rocks.

Tranquillum House is run by Masha (an ethereal Nicole Kidman) and her assistants Yao (Manny Jacinto) and Delilah (Tiffany Boone). Its big promise is to take the guests on a transformative, healing journey, with Masha assuring them that “when you leave here, you will not be the same person as you are now”.

Some of the guests are less than convinced. “Wellness retreats – just another construct to separate rich people from their money and get them to feel good about themselves in the process,” says Lars (Luke Evans), another guest who has recently gone through a break-up – although it turns out that he has other motives for joining the retreat.

Things become even more complicated when we discover that the compelling yet shadowy Masha, once consumed by a life of working and partying, set up Tranquillum after being brought back to life by Yao from a gunshot that left her clinically dead.

The retreat’s protocol also states that the guests must provide regular blood samples to help tailor their wellness plans and, consequently, the fruit juices and smoothies they are given. Their phones, too, are confiscated on arrival.

But despite the initial unease of many of the group about Masha and her practices, none of them can deny the positive effect of their stay, nor can they quite pull away from the retreat.
Meanwhile, Masha has started to receive anonymous threatening messages, and more secrets emerge as the treatments the guests receive become more extreme.
The tranquil beauty of the resort and its surroundings are captured by some glorious cinematography (I can’t deny that I wouldn’t also feel relaxed bathing in a serene river or looking out to the mountains with a tailor-made smoothie in hand).

The acting is outstanding, too. Michael Shannon, for one, is perfectly cast as the constantly upbeat yet quietly suffering Napoleon, while Melissa McCarthy and Bobby Cannavale are both very moving as Frances and former football star Tony, respectively. All of the characters are both likeable and flawed in their own ways.
Nine Perfect Strangers doesn’t attempt to challenge the cliché of wellness resorts as places of privilege and indulgence where hard science takes a back seat, and most of the remedies it proposes aren’t particularly inspired or surprising.

There are some nods to science in the treatments, for example, when the guests take part in activities centred on laughter or fun (known to relieve stress and pain), or when microdosing psilocybin (being explored experimentally) is proposed as a way to help the guests overcome their issues. But the superficial explanations of Masha’s healing protocols end up seeming dismissive of proven practices.

To judge from the first six episodes, Nine Perfect Strangers is a worthwhile watch for drama, thrills and even some humour. Just don’t count on it to challenge your notion of health and wellness retreats or to provide much scientific enlightenment.

Nine Perfect Strangers is available on Amazon Prime Video from 20 August 2021.