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Pieces of Her centres around the fractured relationship between Andy Oliver (Bella Heathcote), a young woman turning 30, who works in a 911 phone line in the small town of Belle Isle, and she moved to this small town to be with her mum, Laura (Toni Collette), who was sick at the time, but is better now.
Initially, Andy (short for Andrea) appears to have a normal relationship with Laura, until a seemlingly random shooter makes his presence felt at a restaurant where they’re having lunch. How this all plays out, you’ll discover as you watch it, but for Laura – who works at a veteran’s centre, helping them heal from their trauma, and is also a breast cancer survivor – it clearly affects her deeply.
It’s safe to say that Laura has to have a spell in hospital, but Andy starts obsessessing over the Twitter outpouring following her mum’s return home, since everyone’s criticising Andy, but loves her mum’s actions on how she controlled the situation.
However, for Andy, who uses the small outbuilding at the bottom of the family garden, the reaction comes as her mum wants Andy out of the house because she’s clearly not thinking straight following coming face to face with the assailant, after protecting Andy at the time.
I have to try and dance around the contents of the opener episode as I’m putting this review online prior to broadcast, but following a new situation, Laura suddenly gives Andy a load of bizarre instructions which require her driving a long distance and not talking to anyone. This sounds mad, because if my Mum started acting like this, I would assume she was doing so out of character and wasn’t thinking straight, and I’d just stay with her, call the police and wait for them to arrive.
Hence, I’m not sure if this drama has a particular plan to follow in this, but in watching the second episode, and again trying to be vague prior to release, this does seem to be less than the sum of its parts… or pieces, since I don’t quite wholly get where this is going. I will say it goes back to a previous time in Laura’s life, but I’ll say no more than that.
Episode 3 left me even more non-plussed, and unless I see reviews saying how it’s absolutely stellar as it goes on, I think I’ll bow out here.
Thanks to our friends at Netflix for the screener prior to release.
Pieces Of Her is not available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but is on Netflix from Friday March 4th.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 40-45 per episode (8 episodes)
Release date: March 4th 2022
Studio: Netflix
Format: 2.00:1
Episode 1: 7/10
Episode 2: 5/10
Episode 3: 3/10
Director: Minkie Spiro
Producers: Darren M Demetre, Anne M Uemura, Jeanne Snow
Novel: Karin Slaughter
Music: Danny Bensi, Chase Deso, Saunder Jurriaans
Cast:
Andy Oliver: Bella Heathcote
Laura Oliver: Toni Collette
Jasper Queller: David Wenham
Jane: Jessica Barden
Gordon Oliver: Omari Hardwick
Nick: Joe Dempsie
Loner: Harry Greenwood
Shelley: Kathleen O’Dwyer
Betsy: Blazey Best
DS Wilson: Zahra Newman
Det Shooltz: Josef Ber
Hoodie: Mike Duncan
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.