TV Show #3: We Were Liars

 You might be like wait I thought this was a book? And you would be right...but recently they have adapted it to a miniseries! This is such a popular trend. No new ideas in Hollywood. Remake after remake, adaptations that do not even live up to the book. Oh well. Let's get into this one.

"We Were Liars" is an Amazon Prime adaptation of E. Lockhart's book of the same name starring Emily Alyn Lind as Cadence Sinclair Eastman, our protagonist. Cadence is the first grandchild of the illustrious Sinclair family with Johnny, played by Joseph Zada, and Mirren, played by Esther McGregor. The final member of their group, the proclaimed "Liars" is Gat, played by Shubham Maheshwari. Gat is the nephew of Johnny's mother boyfriend. Sounds more complicated than it is. In essence, he is Johnny's cousin and best friend. He is also the love interest for Cadence. Each year, the four of them and their families come to Beachwood, an island off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, where the Sinclair's own a vast estate. The story moves back and forth between two summers, Summer 16 and Summer 17. Cadence has lost most of her memory of Summer 16 and no one is telling her what happened. Not even the liars. She struggles to relive the past in order to understand her present. 

Overall, I did enjoy this show, but I found it a bit boring. It was not short enough to be a movie, but was also not long enough to be an eight episode show. Maybe they could have cut it at six. It also seems like they left it on a cliffhanger, which was not in the books. I am not sure how I feel about that considering the ending of the book was clean cut. The show was hard to get through because there were stretches that I found uninteresting. The best part to me was the romance between Ebon and Mirren. Not even in the book but who cares? Ebon also had a strong Boston accent, and I thought, there is no WAY this man is from the Vineyard. Maybe Southie though.

As for the cast, I have seen Lind in many other things including "Gossip Girl' which I preferred her in.  I think it is just difficult to resonate with someone who is trying to be down to earth while being insanely rich. I empathize with her in Summer 17, but I did not enjoy her in Summer 16. Maheshwari did well in his role as I believe this is his first acting gig. To be a lead must be very stressful and he did wonderful! McGregor and Zada also gave very moving performances, and I am looking forward to seeing Zada as young Haymitch. 

This show also had the backdrop of the respective mother's vying for the Sinclair inheritance. They used their children as pawns which was disgusting, in order to gain their father's approval and therefore money. In the book, I do not recall the mothers' identities being so fleshed out because there was a prequel that dove into their childhood. Their arguing and constant battle was insufferable. How do you spend all of your trust fund money, I have no idea. I hated them which means the actors did their jobs. Candice King starred as one of the mothers, which I enjoyed until I say Julie Plec as an executive director. She is always at the scene of the crime.

As I watched this with my mom, it was a chill watch. It took a while, and I do not think it is bingeable, but TikTok seems to like it. Mostly because people did not read the books and did not see the ending coming. But I did. I would be interested if they did an adaptation of the prequel book. Now that could be interesting.