Little Disasters Review 2025 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
It can be disorienting to watch the Paramount+ limited series “Little Disasters” so soon after the surprise breakout success of Peacock’s “All Her Fault,” because the two shows share so many story beats and influences. (Though technically, “Little Disasters” got there first; Paramount+ aired it in the UK and Ireland back in May, and is only now staging a stateside release.) Both are based on novels. Both take place among an affluent milieu of anxious mothers. Both begin with a child coming into harm’s way, then follow the child’s caretaker as she spins out into frantic paranoia.
Adapted by creator Ruth Fowler and co-writer Amanda Duke from Sarah Vaughan’s 2020 novel, “Little Disasters” even takes this adherence to the shared mom thriller template a step further. “All Her Fault” may be another domino in the chain started by “Big Little Lies” in 2017, but “Little Disasters” borrows both part of its title and a framing device from the HBO touchstone. As the characters unpack the events that unfold when seemingly “perfect” mother Jess (Diane Kruger) brings her 10-month-old daughter to a London emergency room with a skull fracture she can’t or won’t explain, they speak directly to director Eva Sigurðardóttir’s camera in a kind of Greek chorus — just like the fictional residents of Monterey in “Big Little Lies” did all those years ago.
Unsurprisingly, “Little Disasters” doesn’t transcend what it’s so plainly inspired by. Nor does the plot’s most fascinating tension, between vaccine skeptic Jess and her doctor friend Liz (Jo Joyner) — who naturally just so happens to be on duty when Jess turns up at the ER — pay off in a satisfying way as the mystery gets resolved in the six-episode series’ final moments. Until then, however, “Little Disasters” is a compact and engaging exploration of one friend group’s escalating tensions. The insights into having it all may be limited to empty platitudes aggregated from airport books (“Turns out being a perfect mother is impossible”), but “Little Disasters” couches them into a novel framework that acts as an effective hook. You can’t fault the show itself for how saturated its subgenre is, though executives should really take note; you can fault it for not fully capitalizing on its own strengths.
Liz and Jess met a decade prior in a new mothers’ support group. Also in attendance were high-powered attorney Charlotte (Shelley Conn, “Bridgerton”) and free-spirited Irishwoman Mel (Emily Taaffe), completing a quartet that’s stayed together through differing career choices, economic outcomes and booze-soaked arguments on holiday in Provence. Half the women work, while half stay at home; half are financially strained, while half live comfortably; one is struggling to conceive a second baby, while Liz has a third who’s implied to be a surprise, bringing a perhaps unwelcome change to her once-idyllic family that culminates with Liz rushing into the ER. The husbands are present, ranging from warm support (Liz’s) to benign cluelessness (Charlotte’s, Jess’) to outright dickishness (Mel’s), but they’re peripheral by design. The real action is among the moms — sorry, mums.
These simmering resentments, along with standard NHS protocol and the need to kick the story into gear, help explain why Liz chooses to call social services when Jess unconvincingly insists her infant daughter Betsey simply fell down while crawling. Kruger gets the showier role here, escalating Jess’ panic as the state gets involved while keeping her fundamental motivations obscure, but it’s Joyner who gives Liz a believable mix of real empathy and understandable pettiness. Liz is doing what she’s supposed to do when she sees a child in danger, and gives Jess multiple chances to explain herself. Yet she can’t totally deny that when a friend who once made her feel inadequate might secretly be a monster, there’s some relief mixed in with the alarm.
Again, the most interesting thread in this tapestry — especially for Americans unused to the idea of free, public insurance — is Jess and Liz’s opposing attitudes toward healthcare. Vaccine skepticism is (unfortunately) mainstream in the U.S., but “Little Disasters” pairs that not-so-fringe belief with Jess’ insistence on taking her kids to see private practitioners over NHS doctors, a practice police start to view with suspicion. Kruger gets to keep her natural German accent, though the script is careful to note Jess grew up in America to contextualize her anti-NHS bias. I wish her backstory included gave Jess’ mistrust of medicine a more specific explanation, the better to explore how often-justified mistrust of a dysfunctional system can lead down a conspiratorial path.
Instead, “Little Disasters” veers in a soapier direction, as is its prerogative. After Jess runs into Liz in the hospital, the absurd coincidences and conflicts of interest continue to pile up. Charlotte gives Jess legal advice; Mel babysits her older kids; bafflingly, Liz is allowed to remain on the periphery of her case, even after the social worker has arrived. I won’t spoil the central question of what really happened to Betsey, or what Jess knew and when. I’ll just say the eventual answer prioritizes shock and surprise over the relationships cultivated by all this intermingling. Honestly, it’s not unlike the ending of “All Her Fault,” which hinged on hiding information from the audience over building on what was already disclosed. Many shows purport to get at the real pain of rich families untroubled by money woes, but few stick the landing.
