TV Review: Little Fires Everywhere Reanalyzes The Power of Motherhood

If there is one thing I LOVED about Little Fires Everywhere, Hulu’s newest show and adaptation of Celeste NG’s critically acclaimed novel, it is that nosedives into motherhood. Society has the tendency to raise women with the sole goal of being moms and make us believe that motherhood is something automatic to us in our souls, bodies, and minds. The truth is that we are human beings: both with or without the task of birthing and raising another human being. Coming out March 18, Little Fires Everywhere endears with its ability to show women learn to be mothers because parenting is a human journey.

Between Reese Witherspoon’s Elena and Washington’s Mia, give have a “tour-de-force” look on how mother’s are a ripe mix of fragility and strength. The younger cast are amazing; they are all kids. Honing personalities they are still discovering and while making choice unknown of what more they carry, let alone consequence. I mention this because Lexi Underwood as Pearl and Megan Stott as Izzy are vital in amplifying the dazzle and distress of their parents. Pearl is smart and kind and quietly resentful of her mother’s choices as a parent, especially her constant moving of them from home to home. She doesn’t know what is is to have a stable home with secure relationships and her mother, who doesn’t even talk to her own parents, has no idea either. Meanwhile, Izzy has that stability but feels it is all a facade…. in a way…. it is.

Izzy capture that youth do have a reason to rebel. They aren’t, necessarily, whiny or frustrated for no reason. Instead, they are highly perceptive and open, sentient beings whose voice is rendered to inexperienced to be heard. For Izzy, her mom, , is more worried about looking great than being it, of which I have to admit her teen angst does cloud her compassion and understanding of her mom. Or, maybe, Reese Witherspoon gives such a fantastic and nuanced performance that I can’t help but to STAN! She makes Elena a paradox; a woman that could be avid in maintaining happiness in her home, at all costs. You can tell she is trying SO HARD to make Izzy happy and connect with her, but that young girl is NOT having it. The divide in their relationships is palpable from the screen and embodies the DREADED “teen years,” in which some teenagers can’t stand to see their parents in a picture… let alone life.
Little Fires Everywhere – Trailer (Official) * A Hulu Original

Admittedly, I think Reese Witherspoon is the epicenter of this show, which is surprising because most lovers of the book were fans of MIa. Washington captures Mia’s fears and own narrowness at seeing the levels and varying approaches to motherhood. Yet, she embodies how love of one’s child can oddly make you narrow yourself because you feel so widely opened. Add on that she is a black single-mother, struggling to make money while trying to maintain a life filled with art and adventure, and she feels like the universe of love Pearl has enacted within her crumbles to her casing of flesh, skin, and blood.Hence, Mia becomes a perfect juxtapostion for Witherspoon’s Elena; with both embodying the different definitions of what it means to “mother” based on race, class, and ethnicity.

Both Mia and Elena take different sides in the debate over who is a child’s real mother: their biological or adopted mom. This question is not so easy and imbues other phenomenal performances from Lu Huang as Bebe and Rosemarie DeWitt as Linda.
Honestly, Huang and DeWitt could have their own separate series, with their own storyline, that would be equally worthy of a binge-watch. They move in such apparent pain and confusion that they magnetize the screen.

Ultimately, from a maternal perspective, Little Fires Everywhere is so compassionate and oddly educational. In humanizing the mythos of this term, motherhood, it breathes life into womanhood and how it is not separate from humanhood. People are complicated, and, perhaps, the best we can do is try to be good, even better people through those complications. Yet, some situations are so morally murky that it is hard to get clear over what is good, especially when you are BOUND to make mistakes. Little Fires Everywhere premiers March 18 on Hulu.