‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ review: Kathryn Hahn brings ‘Dear Sugar’ advice column to life

Hulu’s Very small Stunning Things life up to its title, revealing elegance in almost everything from a purple balloon on a bus to glow-in-the-darkish stars stuck to a bedroom ceiling. But by considerably the most gorgeous detail about the collection is Kathryn Hahn’s leading functionality, which delivers a touching seem at how we operate by way of life’s messes, big and tiny.

Hahn performs Clare Pierce, a woman whose life is mere inches absent from rock bottom. Her husband, Danny (Quentin Plair), and daughter, Rae (Tanzyn Crawford), have kicked her out and want very little to do with her, and she’s on thin ice at her retirement property task. She also carries on to grieve the reduction of her mom, Frankie (Merritt Wever), who handed away all through Clare’s senior year of college or university. (In flashbacks, Sarah Pidgeon performs youthful Clare.)

A likelihood to enhance her instances will come from the most unexpected of spots: tips column “Expensive Sugar.” No, Clare would not obtain any everyday living-transforming suggestions from Sugar. She actually can take over producing the column for an previous friend. Turns out that listening and responding to other people’s personal struggles may be just what Clare requires to commence to recover.

Tiny Wonderful Matters adapts Cheryl Strayed’s reserve of essays of the similar title.

Kathryn Hahn and Tanzyn Crawford in “Very small Beautiful Things.”
Credit rating: Jassica Brooks / Hulu

You may know writer Cheryl Strayed from her memoir Wild, about her working experience hiking the Pacific Crest Path. She also wrote the tips column “Dear Sugar” for on line literary journal The Rumpus from 2010 to 2012. Her “Expensive Sugar” essays had been then published as a ebook, on which Small Beautiful Matters is centered — relatively.

Tiny Wonderful Issues does not try to adapt the essays by themselves. As an alternative, the exhibit weaves its content via a fictionalized version of Strayed’s existence. Some aspects of Clare’s expertise line up with Strayed’s, this kind of as her rural upbringing and the dying of her mother. Even so, the display in no way capabilities as a biography of Strayed.

As Sugar, Clare gets letters inquiring how to deal with marital issues, sharing concerns about youngsters, and far more — all of which are issues plaguing Clare herself. The function of Sugar allows Clare to do the job via her personal activities and empathize with others, a method which Tiny Stunning Things externalizes by way of copious voiceovers of the letters to Sugar as perfectly as Clare’s responses. These are lifted just about phrase for term from the authentic “Dear Sugar” columns, so each individual episode gives a new dose of deeply personal, moving creating.

There are occasions when the voiceovers veer into overly sweet, common lifetime-guidance territory, though dialogue all through tends once in a while toward the melodramatic. Even so, Small Wonderful Issues course corrects with some devastatingly funny moments, such as a rant about Chick-fil-A courtesy of Clare and a later on send out-up of composing retreats.

Kathryn Hahn and Merritt Wever shine in Very small Attractive Items.

Merritt Wever and Sarah Pidgeon in “Tiny Beautiful Matters.”
Credit history: Elizabeth Morris / Hulu

Tiny Lovely Factors‘ combination of humor and poignancy would not be possible without the need of Hahn at the helm. She plays the messiness of Clare’s daily life with staggering clarity, generating her an open up ebook we cannot tear our eyes from — even when she’s executing some thing that would make us cringe, like an sick-suggested hookup or a sweaty breakdown in entrance of her daughter’s good friend.

Pidgeon does great work as younger Clare, also, with a general performance that mirrors Hahn’s and sets up the major emotional link involving Clare and her mom. As Frankie, Wever is the photo of kindness and patience — pretty much to the level of being way too idealized, in some episodes. Nevertheless, some of the show’s most tragic times come about in sparkles of emotion across her experience, these as when Clare does not like a coat Frankie purchased her for Christmas. In the present, times like these tear Clare aside, reflecting in her scenes with Rae. It is apparent she isn’t going to want her daughter to repeat her faults, but specified their strained marriage, how can Clare make amends?

Mother-daughter interactions, these in between Frankie, Clare, and Rae, make for the coronary heart of Little Stunning Items. Episodes generally draw parallels in between these pairings via flashbacks. These flashbacks can from time to time be frustrating, as we really don’t usually get a agency plan of where in the earlier we are. Nevertheless, specified Little Gorgeous Issues‘ focus on recollection, this lack of a temporal anchor will make perception. Memory isn’t linear: It is really messy and heartbreaking, but it can also be cathartic. “Dear Sugar” presents Clare some a lot-required catharsis, and by its conclusion, Little Lovely Points, with its possess dogged exploration of grief and appreciate, ends up obtaining a related outcome.

All episodes of Very small Lovely Matters are streaming on Hulu Apr. 7.(Opens in a new tab)