Tiny Beautiful Things review: A tearjerking TV adaptation
Kathryn Hahn gives a fantastic performance in this Hulu miniseries
When a beloved book is adapted for television, we’re always afraid the characters won’t come to life the way we imagined or that it will be made bland and digestible for the folks who didn’t get around to actually reading it. So when word got out that Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed was going to be turned into a show on Hulu, we gave a here-we-go-again shrug. How could this book, a collection of advice letters from the column “Dear Sugar,” work on the small screen—and, more specifically, who would play Strayed? After a somewhat aimless premiere—the show kicks off on April 7—we’re happy to report that the miniseries won us over, repeatedly reducing us to tears. (Just like with the book, you should absorb this while snuggling some boxes of tissues.)
We’re also happy to report that the series isn’t a reenactment of the letters that were written seeking advice or an exact replica of Cheryl Strayed’s life. Instead, it’s a confident blend of the original source material and a new fictionalized origin story of “Sugar” as an advice writer, all told over eight 30-minute dramas. It centers on Clare Pierce (Kathryn Hahn, fantastically messy) who has all but given up on her dreams of becoming an accomplished author until she gets the chance to try again.
So Clare isn’t really Cheryl Strayed. She exists in an alternate (but very similar) plane of existence to the author, and her life looks … a lot different. There aren’t just issues with Clare’s lost dreams of being a writer, but also with the job she’s settled for, her marriage, and her relationship with her daughter.
The new narrative created around Clare in Tiny Beautiful Things helps get around the whole “who did it better: the book or the show?” dilemma. It gives viewers a fresh take, so they’re not constantly having to compare the two. What’s more, it’s a clever storytelling move considering that “Sugar” was an anonymous persona invented for the column. Clare doesn’t have to be Strayed to fill that role, so long as she also resonates with viewers as a woman who has “been through it” and comes at the world fiercely with love. Of course, Clare is a little messier, a little less self-actualized. She isn’t the writer who she dreamed she would be or the wife or mother. (“How did I get so far from the person I wanted to be?” Clare asks at one point.) She’s a version of Sugar who is more like the letter writers seeking advice.