the undoing book review

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You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz: review

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If your boyfriend thinks he’s smarter than you because he went to a better university than you did, comes home from parties plastered, lets you pay his credit card bill or confided he once had a thing with another guy, are these early warning signs that should put you off marrying him? Assuming you go ahead anyway, should you then be surprised when several years down the line you find that your husband, as he has now become, despises your intellect, is a full-blown alcoholic, has even bigger debts, or has come out and left you for another man? In other words, should you have known?

This is the premise for Jean Hanff Korelitz’s absorbing new novel, which is in many ways a superior example of the now popular psycho-thriller genre that Gillian Flynn pioneered with Gone Girl; the idea being that you can never really know the person closest to you.

Psychotherapist Grace Sachs, 39, is still happily married to paediatric oncologist Jonathan, with whom she has a 12 year-old son. They live on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Grace, when not taking her son to and from his $38,000 a year, academically pushy school or even pushier violin lessons, listens to the sorry stories of women in miserable marriages. The publication of her first book — a self-help guide to choosing better relationships — is imminent. Its title is You Should Have Known, because that’s what Grace wants to say to these women.

So when one of the other mothers at her son’s school is murdered and Jonathan vanishes — he turns out not to be at the Cleveland medical conference he said he was going to — Grace’s smug assumptions about her own life,— and her husband of 18 years, begin to fall apart.

In a book just under 450 pages long, Korelitz has managed to combine a nail-biting narrative with an astute exploration into why the people we lie to most are ourselves. It’s ingeniously constructed too. At the start, the reader is presented with a bracing portrait of Manhattan socialite yummy mummies and Grace’s apparently comfortable, if slightly outsider-ish position within this hierarchy.

We then start to see the cracks appearing before Grace herself does but by the end we’re almost entirely in her head, experiencing her suffering as each new, awful revelation unfolds. It’s not so much the revelations themselves that matter, as how she deals with them, vacillitating between denial and acceptance, as so many of us do when faced with unpalatable facts about the relationships that matter to us most.

What a winning combination this is: highly recommended for Gone Girl fans who will have been disappointed by most of the other lame knock-offs currently on offer.

You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Faber, £12.99)

Buy it here

The Undoing finale review: the twist? We should have known all along

The Undoing review: Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant's gloriously OTT melodrama is the perfect winter watch

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How HBO's 'The Undoing' Is Different From the Book 'You Should Have Known'

The thrilling series, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, is based on a popular 2014 novel.

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Everyone loves a good heart-stopping psychological thriller — and HBO's The Undoing is exactly that.

The Golden Globe-nominated limited series follows New York City socialite and high-powered therapist Grace Fraser ( Nicole Kidman ), whose world comes crashing down when her husband, Jonathan ( Hugh Grant ), is suddenly accused of murdering a young artist named Elena Alves ( Matilda di Angelis ). Through several shocking discoveries, Grace comes to learn what really happened the night Elena was killed and the cold-hard truth she's been overlooking for so many years.

The show's storyline is based on the equally chilling 2014 novel You Should Have Known , written by Jean Hanff Korelitz . While there are many similarities between the book and the HBO show, The Undoing creator David E. Kelley and director Susanne Bier made several key changes to the plot to keep viewers on their toes.

You Should Have Known

"The best you can do with a good book, if you want to dramatize it on screen, is do something else with it," Susanne told OprahMag.com . "By doing that you maintain the actual qualities of the book. But you create something that is possibly different and something in its own right."

Below, we lay out the major differences between The Undoing and You Should Have Known (warning: spoilers ahead!):

The central characters have different first and last names in the book.

Though they're called Grace and Jonathan Fraser in The Undoing , the Harvard sweethearts' surname is actually Sachs in the book. Likewise, Elena Alves is known as Malaga Alves in You Should Have Known .

Malaga is much less beguiling than Elena.

While the two are both mothers to a young son and daughter, the similarities between Elena and Malaga seemingly end there. In The Undoing , Elena is portrayed as both mysterious and enchanting . She's also particularly sexual with Grace in the gym locker room and on the elevator in the very first episode. Malaga, by contrast, is older and isn't sexualized in the book. She is also much less of a focus in You Should Have Known , whereas the show revolves entirely around figuring out who killed the young artist.

Jonathan is American in the book.

If we had to guess, making Jonathan British instead of American was not a purposeful creative choice in The Undoing . Instead, the change most likely had to do with the fact that Hugh, who is British, was cast as Jonathan.

It's clear from beginning of the novel that Jonathan killed Malaga.

Throughout the six-episode series, viewers are constantly given new clues about who Elena's killer could be. During some episodes, viewers wonder if Grace or her and Jonathan's son, Henry ( Noah Jupe ), could've committed the murder. At other times, Jonathan's lawyer, Haley Fitzgerald ( Noma Dumezwen i ), tries to frame Elena's husband, Fernando ( Ismael Cruz Córdova ), as the killer. At one point, Haley even calls Fernando and Elena's preteen son, Miguel ( Edan Alexander ), to testify in court.

But in You Should Have Known , it's not really a mystery at all . The focus of the book is instead on Grace's reflections after Jonathan flees the scene of the crime. In other words, it's accepted early on that Jonathan is a sociopath and Malaga's murderer. In fact, Jonathan confesses to killing Malaga via a letter to Grace at the end of the book.

Like The Undoing , Jonathan is eventually arrested in the book . But unlike The Undoing , the murderous oncologist is caught while abroad and extradited back to the United States — no high-speed car chase and kidnapping of Henry takes place in You Should Have Known .

Malaga and Elena's violent deaths are different.

Five episodes of suspense later, Undoing viewers learn that Jonathan visited Elena the night of the school fundraiser and crushed her head with a sculpting hammer. Shockingly, Henry finds the hammer in the yard of Grace and Jonathan's beach house, runs it through a dishwasher, and attempts to hide the weapon in his violin case.

In the book, however, Jonathan stabs Malaga to death and there is no question over the whereabouts of the weapon. Still, the two deaths are similar in that the son is the one to find her body the next morning.

Grace isn't writing a self-help book in the series.

In You Should Have Known , Grace's life becomes a horrible, ironic mess. Though she champions herself as an accomplished relationship therapist, Grace fails to see who her husband truly is. What's more, as she's forced to come to terms with Jonathan's crime, Grace is preparing to launch her new self-help book aptly entitled You Should Have Known: Why Women Fail to Hear What the Men in Their Lives Are Telling Them . Thinking she knew so much about the person she married, Grace learns the hard way that even she is susceptible to misreading people.

The self-help book storyline, which is so key to Jean's novel, doesn't make it into the HBO series at all. Instead, The Undoing briefly references Grace's clinical relationship knowledge at the beginning of the series when she's counseling others about choosing the right significant others.

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In 'The Undoing,' Secrets, Murder And Zzzzs

Aisha Harris

Grace (Nicole Kidman) and Jonathan (Hugh Grant) come undone in The Undoing . Niko Tavernese/HBO hide caption

Grace (Nicole Kidman) and Jonathan (Hugh Grant) come undone in The Undoing .

The most gripping moment in the HBO miniseries The Undoing involves the most natural of things. It happens in the first episode, between a bunch of wealthy Manhattan moms planning a fundraising event for their hoity-toity private school, and Elena (Matilda De Angelis), the noticeably younger and conventionally hot new mom whose fourth-grade son got in on a scholarship.

As the women prattle on about the sorts of things 1-percenters prattle on about at their meeting, Elena is quiet but eerie, casting intense glares at the others while trying to calm her restless infant daughter. She casually lifts up her top, pulls down her bra and begins breastfeeding; the editing cuts between the disapproving glances of the other women at the table, underscored by the soft rumbling of an ominous orchestral score. And then: A close-up of the baby latched onto Elena dissolves into an even closer shot of that same image, followed by an overhead shot of the women sitting silently at the table, all looking in Elena's direction.

It's a deliciously crafted scene, overtly positioning Elena as the outsider to this gilded cohort and edging into the realm of parody, perhaps unintentionally. Is it an homage to '70s thrillers like The Stepford Wives , which found ways to draw out horror and paranoia from socioeconomic anxieties? I'm not sure, but I do know the rest of David E. Kelley's latest sudsy drama about the bougiest of the bougie doesn't come close to being this exciting again. (Five of six episodes were made available to critics in advance; all episodes were directed by Susanne Bier.)

In The Undoing Kelley reunites with Nicole Kidman, along with many of the same themes they explored together in Big Little Lies. (Lies big and little abound here, too, albeit among elites of a different coast.) As Grace Fraser, one of those wealthy Manhattan moms, Kidman plays yet another woman trying to keep it together while falling apart under the weight of family secrets. She's a respected therapist who excels at helping her clients recognize their self-destructive habits and untangle their messy personal lives, but – surprise! – everything at home is not as it seems.

'Big Little Lies' Returns For A 2nd Season

Without spoiling: The Undoing contains lust, murder, a missing person and cheeky, extremely self-aware lines like "I thought that was the whole essence of modern parenting, isn't it? Keeping them protected from reality for as long as possible so that when they finally emerge they can't cope and end up self-harming." A handsomely craggy Hugh Grant co-stars as Jonathan, Grace's husband and a children's oncologist; Noah Jupe plays Henry, their young son. I have not read the novel from which the show is adapted – You Should Have Known , by Jean Hanff Korelitz – but anyone who's digested enough Lifetime movies and glossy melodramas chronicling the disintegration of idyllic upper-class families is likely to figure out where most of the various twists are heading, a few steps ahead.

This isn't an inherently bad thing; part of the pleasure of watching erotic mystery thrillers such as this is the adherence to a formula and familiar beats like furtive glances and dramatic courtroom revelations. But even with this cast (Donald Sutherland and Édgar Ramírez also star) and this subject matter, The Undoing somehow manages to be a slog, neither titillating nor particularly suspenseful. Whereas Big Little Lies Season 1 struck the right balance between self-awareness and intrigue, with A-list actresses chewing scenery in the most delectable of ways, the meta cracks about the Frasers' insular bubble feel forced, and Kidman, Grant and the rest of the adult cast are unable to make the material crackle.

And there are undercooked efforts to provide some level of commentary, but they barely scratch the surface; they wind up seeming like lip service or totally missed opportunities. The camera will occasionally linger on the mostly black and brown extras in the background of the prison scenes, perhaps to serve as some kind of acknowledgment of the prison industrial complex? It's a choice indicating a fear of truly addressing the fact of the gigantic wealth and racial gap that hangs so prominently over this family's circumstances.

It can be perhaps unfair to critique a work based on what it's not – the creators made a choice to focus on what they wanted to focus on. But I couldn't help but want more of Elena and her family's perspectives in opposition to the Frasers, for a more insightful study of class and privilege that the show teases but doesn't deliver upon. Instead, she is a frustratingly enigmatic pawn in the plot's boilerplate execution, and The Undoing unfolds sleepily on all fronts: as suspense, as excess and as an engrossing character study.

• The Undoing

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'The Undoing': What to Know About HBO's New Prestige Drama

Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, and an unsolved murder? Sold.

If you've been needing to fill the  Big Little Lies  hole in  your viewing schedule,  prepare yourself for  The Undoing . HBO's highly anticipated psychological thriller, about the unraveling of a marriage and the lies it was built on, is just as gripping (if not  more  binge-able) as the  award-winning  BLL . HBO has set a premiere date for  October 25, 2020,  but we already have some information about the cast, the plot, the book it's based on, and more.

The show is packed with an all-star team, in front of and behind the camera.  Big Little Lies  writer David E. Kelley served as  The Undoing's  writer and showrunner, while Susanne Bier—who previously worked on the Netflix film  Bird Box  and won an Emmy for AMC's  The Night Manager —directed all six episodes. Kelley, Bier, and lead actress Nicole Kidman served as the show's executive producers.

Kidman, who won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series for her work on  BLL , expressed her excitement about teaming up with Kelley again. “David has created another propulsive series with a fascinating, complicated female role at its center,” the actress told  Variety  in 2018.

Here's everything to know about  The Undoing  before it hits the streaming service.

What's The Undoing about?

The Undoing  is a six-part limited series based on the Jean Hanff Korelitz’s 2014 book  You Should Have Known  (but the show diverges past the book's plot relatively quickly). In it, Grace Fraser, a therapist who seems to have it all together, realizes her life isn't what she thought it was after a crime rocks the picturesque private school her son attends.

The HBO description for the show reads: "Grace and Jonathan Fraser (Kidman and Hugh Grant) are living the only lives they ever wanted for themselves. Overnight a chasm opens in their lives: a violent death and a chain of terrible revelations. Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child (Noah Jupe) and her family."

Who stars in The Undoing?

The Undoing 's cast is a who's who of Hollywood's top talent. Nicole Kidman stars as Upper East Sider Grace Fraser; Hugh Grant captivates as her charming husband, Jonathan; Noah Jupe plays the Frasers' son, Henry; and award-winning actor Donald Sutherland stars as Grace's wealthy and protective father, Franklin Reinhardt. Other notable cast members include Édgar Ramírez ( The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story)  as Detective Joe Mendoza, Noma Dumezweni ( Cursed Child ) as lawyer Haley Fitzgerald, and upcoming Italian actress Matilda De Angelis as Elena Alves.

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Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman as Jonathan and Grace Fraser.

Is there a trailer?

On August 6, HBO released a trailer for  The Undoing  that will make your heart pound—literally. The minute-long clip features very little info on the show's plot; it's simply punctuated by the sound of a beating heart.

On Sept. 23, HBO released a longer trailer that offered more clues about the show's plot:

When does it come out?

The Undoing  will premiere on  Sunday, October 25 at 9 p.m. on HBO.  (Episodes will subsequently be available to stream on HBO Max .) The series, ordered in 2018, was originally slated for a May 2020 premiere, but due to COVID-19, HBO delayed its arrival until fall. Guess good things come to those who wait..and have HBO logins.

Jonathan (Hugh Grant) and Grace (Nicole Kidman) discuss their marriage in an episode of HBO’s The Undoing.

Is The Undoing good?

Yes. Grant is at his all-time best and Kidman is a powerhouse. Six episodes won't feel like enough.

Writes  Variety :  "The Undoing  is extremely effective as a psychological thriller." But it adds: "Where it gets lost, then, is in chasing the scattered interests of its ever-twisting plot."  Entertainment Weekly  notes in its  review : "T he Undoing  is beautiful—the people, the locations, the coats!—and we’re all apt to cut beautiful things a little slack. Through all of the misdirects, the characters’ dumb decisions, the dreamy detours,  The Undoing  kept me guessing—and, of course, gloating over everyone’s misfortune. And  TV Line  echoes that it's an adrenaline ride: "If it’s ultimately not as emotionally complex as  Big Little Lies , it’s more immediately gripping, with a breathless pace and a wealth of compelling performances."

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Neha Prakash is Marie Claire 's Entertainment Director, where she edits, writes, and ideates culture and current event features with a focus on elevating diverse voices and stories in film and television. She steers and books the brand's print and digital covers as well as oversees the talent and production on MC' s video franchises like "How Well Do You Know Your Co-Star?" and flagship events, including the Power Play summit. Since joining the team in early 2020, she's produced entertainment packages about buzzy television shows and films, helped oversee culture SEO content, commissioned op-eds from notable writers, and penned widely-shared celebrity profiles and interviews. She also assists with social coverage around major red carpet events, having conducted celebrity interviews at the Met Gala, Oscars, and Golden Globes. Prior to Marie Claire , she held editor roles at Brides , Glamour , Mashable , and Condé Nast, where she launched the Social News Desk. Her pop culture, breaking news, and fashion coverage has appeared on Vanity Fair , GQ , Allure , Teen Vogue , and Architectural Digest . She earned a masters degree from the Columbia School of Journalism in 2012 and a Bachelor of Arts degree from The Pennsylvania State University in 2010. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and dog, Ghost; she loves matcha lattes, Bollywood movies, and has many hot takes about TV reboots. Follow her on Instagram @nehapk.

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Rich people suffer beautifully in The Undoing, HBO's latest thriller: Review

Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant star as New York City socialites coping with murder and marriage troubles in the HBO miniseries.

Kristen Baldwin is the TV critic for EW

Why eat the rich when it’s so much more fun to watch them suffer? As the latest entry in HBO ’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Miserable genre, The Undoing is a starry saga blending murder, marriage, and luxurious Manhattan townhouses. Though the story feels familiar, the miniseries — written by David E. Kelley and directed by Susanne Bier — delivers enough twists, suspense and sumptuous style to pull the viewer along to the end.

The Fraser family are New York elite: Jonathan ( Hugh Grant ) is a revered pediatric oncologist; his wife Grace ( Nicole Kidman ) is a therapist who spends her downtime planning fundraising galas for the fancy private school their son Henry (Noah Jupe) attends. Grace and Jonathan have a healthy sex life and a gorgeous Upper East Side duplex; the idea of family discord is limited to refusing Henry’s repeated requests for a dog. Then one morning, a mother from Henry’s school is found dead, and Jonathan suddenly goes missing for several days. Things only get worse for Grace: She can zero in on her patients’ relationship troubles with a clinician’s calm precision, but does she really know her own husband? (Predictable spoiler: She doesn’t.)

Adapted from the 2014 novel You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, Undoing (premiering Oct. 25 at 9 p.m.) packs an impressive amount of story into the first two episodes before things start to meander a bit… much like Jonathan and Grace, who continue to take leisurely daytime strolls along the East River promenade, even after he becomes the most famous murder suspect on the planet. This is the type of drama where characters soothe their troubled souls by playing classical piano in their spacious penthouse parlors, and Bier is fond of shooting Grace looking out of or being observed through windows, perhaps to emphasize the dangerous limits of her worldview.

Kidman is typically luminous as Grace, a preternaturally perfect one-percenter brought low; and it’s a treat to watch a grizzled Grant, handsome as ever, play true (not foppishly charming) desperation. Donald Sutherland is impeccably frosty as Franklin, Grace’s absurdly wealthy father and a self-described “c---sucker.” (Sutherland, God love him, savors the word like foie gras melting on his tongue.) Edgar Ramírez is superb and ominous as Detective Mendoza; both he and Lily Rabe , a standout as Grace’s brisk, compassionate lawyer friend, are sadly underused.

But The Undoing is beautiful — the people, the locations, the coats! — and we’re all apt to cut beautiful things a little slack. Through all of the misdirects, the characters’ dumb decisions, the dreamy detours, The Undoing kept me guessing — and, of course, gloating over everyone’s misfortune. Grade: B

The Undoing premieres Oct. 25 at 9 p.m. on HBO.

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The Undoing Reveals Its Killer, to a Chorus of Eye-Rolls

You Should Have Known isn’t just the name of the book on which HBO’s soapy limited series The Undoing is based. In hindsight, it’s also an appropriate taunt for viewers who were led to believe the show’s killer would wind up being anyone other than the true guilty party.

Based on Jean Hanff Korelitz ’s aforementioned novel and adapted for HBO by powerhouse television writer David E. Kelley , The Undoing focuses on Grace and Jonathan Fraser ( Nicole Kidman , who also sings the show’s theme song , and Hugh Grant ), a successful New York couple whose life is, well, undone when a young woman named Elena ( Matilda De Angelis ) turns up dead and Jonathan is accused of her murder. Throughout the twisty series, Kelley and director Susanne Bier presented a number of other potential suspects—including the Fraser’s son, Henry ( Noah Jupe ), Grace’s friend Sylvia ( Lily Rabe ), and even Grace’s father, Franklin ( Donald Sutherland ). But Jonathan always remained the prime person of interest in Elena’s death as he stood trial for her murder.

So maybe it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise that Sunday night’s finale, “The Bloody Truth,” confirmed expectations: Jonathan did indeed kill Elena, an outcome that mirrored the denouement to Korelitz’s source material.

Yet perhaps owing to the lengths The Undoing went to push viewers away from the obvious—or Grant’s inherent ability to garner sympathy from the audience—response to the finale was polarized.

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Kelley changed much about You Should Have Known when adapting the novel, including giving Jonathan a major presence in the story. In the book, Jonathan disappears after the murder and later writes Grace a letter in which he confesses to the crime. It’s one of many tweaks—enough that the adaptation even left Korelitz unsure of how the series might conclude. “People keep asking me, ‘Who did it?’ And I’m like, ‘I have no idea!’” she told the Washington Post earlier this month. “I know who did it in the book, but I’m prepared to be very surprised along with everybody else.”

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The Undoing Is Based on a Book, But it Might Not Give Away the Ending

The show deviates from the book after two episodes.

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• The Undoing , a riveting new HBO miniseries starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, is based on the book You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz.
• However, The Undoing deviates from the book's plot after the first two episodes.
• This is how The Undoing compares to the book that inspired it.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Undoing .

If you're craving stories of secrets kept among the upper crust, then The Undoing is the best thing on HBO since Big Little Lies . Out October 25, The Undoing is the story of Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman, reunited with her curly hair), a psychologist whose world falls apart when her husband, Jonathan (Hugh Grant), is linked to the death of a Elena Alves (Matilda De Angelis), a fellow parent at Reardon, their children's fictional private school in Manhattan.

Like Big Little Lies , the series stars Kidman and was adapted from a novel by David E. Kelley. Unlike Big Little Lies , though, the novel won't necessarily give away the show's ending. Only the first two (of six) episodes of The Und oing follow closely to You Should Have Known, a richly drawn 2014 psychological thriller by Jean Hanff Korelitz.

Using the characters and premise found in the novel, The Undoing goes on its own path. "The best you can do with a good book, if you want to dramatize it on screen, is do something else with it," Susanna Bier, who directed all eight episodes, tells OprahMag.com. "By doing that you maintain the actual qualities of the book. But you create something that is possibly different and something in its own right."

You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz

While veering away from the book's specifics, The Undoing preserves its feeling of destabilization. You Should Have Known is written in close third-person, and ekes hundreds of pages by analyzing a compact time period: The days in which Grace's cozy assumptions about her marriage and her husband's character crumble, and she's forced to rebuild.

The Undoing creates a similar mood of destabilization as Grace fact checks her way through a personal crisis. "One of the main things I set out to do was, How do I—with cinematic language—tell the story of discombobulation? How do I tell the story of confusion? Of chaos? Of your world falling apart, but you still need to function and seem to function? How do I tell that visually, and in a palatable way for an audience?" Bier asks. She adds that she was excited to have the opportunity to tell a murder mystery, as well as to have the ability to "venture into somebody's state of mind."

The result is many moments of Kidman walking around Manhattan in extravagant, colorful coats, her enigmatic expression masking a bone-deep confusion. Like Grace, audiences might overlook certain facts in The Undoing . We'll be kept guessing until the final episode, since no answers will be found in the book. Here are the major differences between The Undoing and the book that inspired it.

In the book, Grace (ironically) is the author of a book of marital advice.

When Korelitz's books opens, Grace Sachs, a successful therapist, is about to go on a press tour for her book, also titled You Should Have Known . After years working with countless unhappily married women, Grace has developed a harsh and severe philosophy: They got themselves into these situations willingly, by overlooking qualities about their partners. In short, they should have known.

"Listening to them, I continually thought: You knew right at the beginning. She knows he’s never going to stop looking at other women. She knows he can’t save money. She knows he’s contemptuous of her—the very first time they talk to each other, or the second date, or the first night she introduces him to her friends. But then she somehow lets herself unknow what she knows. She persuades herself that something she has intuitively seen in a man she barely knows isn’t true at all now that she—quote unquote—has gotten to know him better. And it’s that impulse to negate our own impressions that is so astonishingly powerful," Grace says, during the book's opening scene, an interview with a journalist.

Ironically, when facts about her husband are revealed, Grace ends up being in the same position as her patients. Her earlier words sound unthinkably smug. So instantly infatuated by Jonathan at the age of 21, Grace overlooked important details. Now, with her husband missing and a woman named Malaga dead (called Elena in the show), those details turn out to be red flags . Her patients should have known—and so should she.

Jonathan never appears in the novel.

If The Undoing were a conventional adaptation of Korelitz's novel, there would be no Hugh Grant. Jonathan is missing for the entire book, appearing only in Grace's memories. He's the Rebecca of You Should Have Known —a person that haunts the book's characters with his absence.

With Jonathan gone, Grace and her son, Henry (Noah Jupe), are forced to grapple with the aftermath of his actions alone. They escape from the tabloid coverage at her family's rustic country home in Connecticut (they're not quite as rich in the book as they are in the show), and ultimately begin anew there.

Jonathan's absence also functions as a neat metaphor for his character: He was an empty shell, able to conform to what others wanted him to be—as long as it served him. He never really cared about other people; not his wife, nor their son, nor his cancer patients (he's a pediatric oncologist). His physical absence mirrors a previous emotional absence.

The ending of You Should Have Known identifies the killer.

After skipping town at the beginning of the novel, secrets about Jonathan's life unfurl. He had a history of aggression at work, and was ultimately let go from his position at the hospital. He also had a history of infidelity, including with other hospital staff members.

But here's the most important revelation: Jonathan had an affair with Malaga Alves (called Elena in the show), the parent of Miguel, a patient of his. Malaga got pregnant and had Jonathan's child. Jonathan paid for Miguel to attend Reardon, and borrowed money from Grace's father to do so. When Malaga revealed she was pregnant again, Jonathan impulsively killed her, fearing his secret life would intrude into his carefully manicured one with Grace.

As for what happens to Grace and Henry? You'll have to read the book to find out.

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Elena Nicolaou is the former culture editor at Oprah Daily. 

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Den of Geek

The Undoing Finale Ending Explained: Nicole Kidman Drama Closes With a Bang

Who killed Elena Alves and what The Undoing series finale says about power and privilege.

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HBO’s glossy six part drama The Undoing has come to a close providing answers to some burning questions, not least of which is who killed Elena Alves (Matilda De Angelis). The show closed with quite the bang though, raising other issues that had been playing out in the background throughout the series. 

The Undoing was created by David E Kelley and is loosely based on the 2014 novel You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz – Susanne Bier is the series director . Nicole Kidman plays Grace Fraser, a wealthy and accomplished clinical psychologist, married to charming Oncologist Jonathan (Hugh Grant). But one night after a lavish fundraiser a beautiful young woman whose child attends the same school as Grace and Jonathan’s son Henry (Noah Jupe) is found murdered. Jonathan had claimed to be away on a work trip but suddenly he’s not contactable – Grace’s world seems to be falling apart around her rapidly. 

Revelations are drip-fed throughout the show. Jonathan is no longer working at the hospital he had been employed by after reports of an incident with a patient – which turns out to be Elena’s son Miguel. Jonathan was having an affair with Elena, and it turns out her baby daughter is his and not her husband’s. 

When Jonathan was a teenager he accidentally left a door open when he was supposed to be tending to his four year old sister. She wandered into the road and was killed, and according to Jonathan’s mum Jonathan showed no guilt, remorse or grief over the incident.

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Episode five ended on the biggest cliffhanger yet – the discovery of a mallet – the probable murder weapon – inside Henry’s violin case.

Episode six entitled ‘The Bloody Truth’ attempts to tie up these loose ends. Henry found the bloody mallet in a bag at the beach house, he says. He hid it to protect his father. Because Henry ran it through the dishwasher twice it’s now unlikely to have any meaningful DNA.

Could the mallet have exonerated Jonathan and contained DNA which might have pointed to Fernando Alves (Ismael Cruz Cordova)? And are we quite sure that Henry, who had observed Jonathan and Elena together, couldn’t have done it himself?

Jonathan certainly brings up the suggestion to an enraged Grace (more on this later). 

After consulting with their lawyer Haley Fitzgerald (Noma Dumezweni) the family makes the dubious decision not to reveal the mallet to the police. Jonathan is mid trial and the revelation of the murder weapon being discoverd at the beach house can only harm his case, meanwhile it will potentially make Henry an accessory to murder.

The Undoing plays with ideas of how well you know another person. Grace is a psychologist and so in theory should be a better judge of character than most. She’s also the wronged wife who has stood by her cheating husband even after the revelation that Elena’s daughter is Jonathan’s. She is the very image of beauty, dignity and sympathy. 

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Grace asks Haley to allow her to take the stand – she will act as a character witness for Jonathan.

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Under oath and during cross examination, Grace tells Haley that Jonathan is a kind man, an empathetic man and a man not capable of violence – not ever, not once. He couldn’t possibly have killed Elena, he isn’t capable of such an act, and she should know, she’s a professional.

The thing is, he is capable of such things, and she knows it. Jonathan grabbed Grace by the throat when he broke into the beach house. Grace was afraid for her life and called the police. And course, there’s the story about Jonathan’s little sister and how he never seemed to exhibit any kind of sadness or suffering over her loss. That doesn’t sound like the man Grace described.

Grace has tipped off her best friend Sylvia (Lily Rabe) who has fed this evidence to the prosecution who completely destroys Grace as a witness and allows a lot of evidence to be presented and referred to which is not in any way relevant to the case. Because Grace is a witness for the defence the judge won’t throw her testimony out. 

As Jonathan says, she has “fucked him”. 

It’s a wonderful twist that benefits from the truly terrific performances from all the main cast, but Kidman and Grant in particular. He is charming, funny but there’s a callousness, a psychopathy under the surface that perhaps Grace can finally see. Whether Grace knows it for sure or not,  Jonathan did kill Elena. What Grace never doubted was that Henry did not. That Jonathan would point the finger at his own son (knowing he’d committed the crime) indicates what kind of man he really is.

But Grace’s decision to seal the deal on Jonathan’s fate feels less to do with justice than for the good of her own family. She asks Henry whether he wants the family to return to normal after the trial – but he turns the question back on her. She says she just wants whats best for him. Meanwhile Grace’s father Franklin Reinhardt (Donald Sutherland) reminds Grace that if Jonathan is acquitted he will remain in Grace and Henry’s lives forever.

Jonathan is a killer – a brutal, psychopath who beat his young lover to a pulp. But the ending of The Undoing isn’t about Elena getting justice, as much as it is the incredible control exerted over the legal system by the wealthy and powerful.

Jonathan is guilty. His DNA was in Elena’s studio, his semen was in her body, just after her death he bolts and when he returns he breaks into the property where Grace is staying – the place where the murder weapon is found. Elena’s husband has an alibi and no one else really has a motive. It’s pretty conclusive.

Yet without Grace’s manipulation it is possible Jonathan would have been acquitted. The family, thanks to Franklin, has the best lawyer money can buy. Jonathan is a rich white doctor who cures sick children, Fernando Alves is not white or rich and is prone to outbursts. 

Grace is smart – smarter than Jonathan – who isn’t able to predict that the prosecution might have access to the terrified 911 call that Grace made when Jonathan broke in. 

Jonathan is a monster, who murders Elena when she gets too close to his family and dares to suggest she has any control over him.

Grace is a benevolent but equally powerful woman who is able to affect the course of justice because of her credibility, her beauty and her authority (even if that means deliberately flipping that on its head).

The series finishes not with the jury’s verdict but with Jonathan making one last play for power. He takes Henry and makes a run for it – an incredibly uncomfortable journey with Jonathan flicking between faux jovial and  bubbling fury. When it is clear police cars are closing in he makes one last attempt at keeping control. Driving across a high bridge he pulls over and climbs the railing threatening to jump, while his 12-year-old son pleads with him not to. Grace arrives and runs to the two screaming Jonathan’s name. But when she reaches her child she takes him and turns away. Jonathan asks for a cuddle but she refuses. 

Jonathan is going to prison, Grace has her son, but the ending is bitter sweet. Vulnerable, trusting Elena is still dead, her son Miguel had to find her body, and her husband Fernando is left dealing with the trauma having been insinuated into a crime he didn’t commit. Jonathan may have been brought to justice but wealth and privilege has still proven its power.

Rosie Fletcher

Rosie Fletcher is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Den Of Geek. She’s been an entertainment journalist for more than 15 years previously working at DVD & Blu-ray Review, Digital…

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Undoing’ On HBO, Where A Murder Rocks Nicole Kidman And Hugh Grant’s Idyllic Marriage

Where to stream:.

• The Undoing
• Nicole Kidman

‘The Perfect Couple’: Nicole Kidman and Liev Scheiber’s Steamy Window Sex Scene is All About “Keeping Secrets”

‘the perfect couple’ episode 3 recap: “the perfect family”, ‘the perfect couple’ episode 2 recap: “she would never do that” .

Can’t get enough of stories about rich white families torn asunder by people from the working class? Think two seasons of Big Little Lies and one season of  Little Fires Everywhere wasn’t enough? Then do we have a show for you!  The Undoing just arrived on HBO, led by  BLL’s Nicole Kidman and the ever-droll Hugh Grant. And, yes, it’s about a rich white family that’s disrupted by someone from the working class. Want to know more? Read on…

THE UNDOING : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A boy in a school uniform runs to his mother’s art studio, opens it with a key, and then there’s a shocked and anguished look on his face.

The Gist: Flash to two days earlier, in the well-appointed townhouse of the Fraser family. Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman) is a therapist and the daughter of the wealthy philanthropist Franklin Reinhardt (Donald Sutherland); Jonathan Fraser (Hugh Grant) is an oncologist at the top of his profession. Their son Henry (Noah Jupe) goes to Reardon, a top private school in Manhattan. After a couple of decades of marriage, the two seem to be still deeply in love and attracted to each other, and the ever-introverted Jonathan would rather quip his way through social engagements rather than talk to people.

During a meeting with other Reardon mothers, who have squeezed in time to put together an auction to raise money for scholarships, a woman named Elena Alves (Matilda De Angelis) joins the group, infant in tow. Brought to the group by high-powered executive Sylvia Steineitz (Lily Rabe), it’s obvious she’s not from the same moneyed circles as the others; she has two kids and no daycare. She even pulls out her breast to feed her baby, right in the middle of the meeting, and Grace is the only one not offended. The next day, Grace encounters Elena in the gym locker room; stark naked, she thanks Grace for being kind to her during the meeting. Grace, for her part, is gracious but a little weirded out by how free Elena is with her body.

During the black-tie auction, Elena comes by herself and gets a lot of attention from men; Grace encounters her in the bathroom, and Elena says she’s overwhelmed by, well, pretty much everything. Grace offers her help, offers a ride, and seems very concerned. But Elena leaves early. So does Jonathan, paged by the hospital about a patient (who doesn’t make it). The next morning he’s on his way to a conference in Cleveland.

The next morning, during a tense couples therapy session with clients, she gets a text from the school. It turns out that Elena was found shot to death by her son Miguel (Edan Alexander) in her art studio. Aside from the shock of it, she gets a lot of questions from NYPD detectives Joe Mendoza (Edgar Ramírez) and Paul O’Rourke (Michael Devine). Sylvia says Elena’s husband Fernando (Ismael Cruz Cordova) is a person of interest. “It’s always the fucking husband,” she says. But, as Grace tries to get in touch with Jonathan in Cleveland, she discovers something that will send her mind reeling in many different directions.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Even though it’s based on a whole different novel ( You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz), it’s undeniable that  The Undoing feels like an east coast version of  Big Little Lies,  with maybe some story elements of  Little Fires Everywhere mixed in. We’re surprised Reese Witherspoon isn’t involved in this show at all.

Our Take: Comparing  The Undoing to BLL is pretty much inevitable, given Kidman’s involvement and the fact that the show is written by  BLL’ s David E. Kelley (Susanne Bier is also an EP and directs all six episodes). But the comparisons go deeper than that; it’s about rich white people living privileged lives that are torn apart by the introduction into their circle of someone who isn’t of their status. Only here, that person is murdered in the first episode, and as the Fraser family increasingly gets the attention of the authorities for Jonathan’s possible involvement, that’s when the idyllic family Kidman’s character thought she had gets upended.

But, lord, the two shows feel interchangeable in every other way. We have the coterie of Reardon moms, all professionals, who can’t help but gossip about each other and the “weird” new mom in their midst — Sylvia didn’t like seeing Elena just staring at the school from a bench across the street after dropping her son off. All of the people natter about penthouse apartments and the Hockneys on display. Jonathan and Franklin seem to have a tense relationship for no apparent reason.

Yes, the focus of the series will be Jonathan being accused of Elena’s murder, and a lot of it will be reconstructed via flashback. And this time around, Kidman doesn’t play a victim of domestic violence who is just striving to get her power back. But her world is still rocked and her marriage upended via behavior that neither she nor the people in her circle of friends expected. One of her friends, Sally Morrison (Janel Moloney) says, “Seriously, staring down cancer in children every day and maintaining his sense of humor the whole time? I don’t know how he does it.” So that’s the baseline of where Grace’s marriage is, giving it a jumping off point for the shock of what comes next.

Kidman and Grant are fantastic, as you’d expect. It’s refreshing to see Kidman’s character start from strength instead of weakness, and that power is evident in her performance. Grant is his usual dry, quippy self, which makes us think Kelley adapted the character from the book to suit Grant’s “charming cad” style; there’s a scene where Jonathan closes an elevator on some approaching party guests simply because he doesn’t want to talk to them, and we laughed hard at that.

But do we really need another HBO “limited series” about rich white people with lives that aren’t what they seem? We got two seasons of  BLL . This feels redundant, at least at the start. Maybe things will change as the six episodes progress. But we’re not sure they will

Sex and Skin: Jonathan suggests some shower nookie, but for the most part the only nudity are from the scenes where Elena is very free with her body.

Parting Shot: Grace texts Jonathan, and hears buzzing. She looks in his nightstand and finds his phone. Then she calls around to different Hyatts in Cleveland, based on his quip about bonus points, and finds he’s not in any of them. She wonders just what the hell is going on as we see flashes of Elena’s bloody body.

Sleeper Star: We’re happy to see Donald Sutherland in anything new these days, and we’re curious to see how his influential character will be involved in the story.

Most Pilot-y Line: There’s an extended scene where Grace pegs one of her more difficult clients as someone who jumps at any man who pays her attention, despite being meticulous in the rest of her life. Is this supposed to show how keen of a therapist she is? It was just unnecessary. Also, we don’t need multiple clients telling her how expensive she is. That sounds like it comes from the textbook for Therapist Jokes 101.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Despite Kidman’s and Grant’s performances, we couldn’t muster up enough energy to care about anyone in The Undoing , at least not enough to spend six hours unraveling its central mystery. It’s certainly watchable, but having this show come so soon after  BLL makes it feel like we’ve seen it all before.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

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The Undoing

HBO’s latest high-profile mini-series consciously echoes recent hits for the beloved pay cable network. It has the pedigree and even some of the personnel from “ Big Little Lies ,” mixed with the NY whodunit aspect of “ The Night Of ,” but it ends up paling in comparison to both. Despite heavy lifting of talents like Nicole Kidman , Hugh Grant , and Donald Sutherland , it simply drifts away from what it should have been, revealing its shallowness more with each passing episode. It’s tempting to say that “The Undoing” would have been stronger as a theatrical thriller because it has closer to 100 minutes of actual plot, but the truth is that it probably would have been just as weak there without the sheen of Prestige TV to attempt to elevate it.

“Big Little Lies” star Nicole Kidman reunites with the writer of that award winner, David E. Kelley , to adapt Jean Hanff Korelitz ’s You Should Have Known , the story of a NY murder that unravels the marriage of a wealthy couple. Kidman plays Grace Fraser, and one look at her Manhattan residence makes clear she has generational wealth (although one of the problems here is how little Kelley seems interested in examining how privilege impacts what unfolds). She’s a high-profile couples therapist, and her husband Jonathan (Hugh Grant) is a successful pediatric oncologist. They have a well-adjusted child named Henry ( Noah Jupe ), and life seems good.

The series premiere, which is easily the best episode, drops a woman named Elena Alves ( Matilda De Angelis ) into the highly manicured life of Grace Fraser. She meets her at a committee meeting for a school auction, as both of their children attend the prestigious Reardon School. Elena seems oddly interested in Grace, making her uncomfortable, but Grace tries to be kind and helpful. Suddenly, Elena’s bludgeoned body is found in her salon, and it’s revealed that the young mother of two was fascinated with Grace for reasons that will unravel the domestic bliss of the Frasers. From this promising start, “The Undoing” turns into a courtroom whodunit as Grace attempts to determine exactly how much of her life has been a lie.

“The Undoing” has undeniably high production values and a top-notch cast, but they’re in service of increasingly lackluster and inconsistent storytelling. Kidman is typically strong, but the courtroom material often sidelines her as the plot goes through its machinations, and solid work by Grant, Sutherland, and Edgar Ramirez (as the investigating detective) suffers a similar fate, although someone should greenlight a gritty mystery-of-the-week series for Ramirez, who brings a bit of charm to a series that needed a lot more of it. 

Everything and everyone here starts to feel like a cog in an increasingly slow machine because Kelley and director Susanne Bier can’t find the momentum to drag this story out to nearly six hours. What’s truly frustrating is that the production doesn’t take this extra time to deepen the characters so much as just repeat plot points and unnaturally drag out scenes. The entire fourth episode could have been five minutes in a superior film, and yet that extra running time doesn’t enrich the character development or even allow for enjoyment of the ensemble. It just treads water.

To be fair, the slow doggie paddle that is “The Undoing” has its moments, most of them courtesy of the ensemble. Sadly, Kidman, who is really one of the best working actresses, isn’t challenged enough by the material here. Grace is far too reactive, facing down new challenges in a way that doesn’t allow Kidman to flex her acting muscles. By virtue of the mysteries surrounding his character, Grant may actually walk away with the series-best performance, although Sutherland, Jupe, and Ramirez are strong too. It’s not a question of the talent of the ensemble, but how little they’re given to do. And the show is incredibly frustrating with its unwillingness to world-build beyond its whodunit story. “Big Little Lies” expanded its focus beyond its core mystery to give characters internal and external lives of their own that are quite simply lacking in “The Undoing.” (And there’s something off about a show that introduces two non-white adult characters only to kill one and make the other a suspect but seems afraid to comment on how race and privilege would impact this story.)

It’s bad enough that “The Undoing” too often feels like a pale copy of what has been done more sharply on HBO before, but it’s a reminder that adult thrillers like this don’t get made in theatrical feature form like they used to—source material like this has become the product of streaming and TV mini-series. Ten years ago, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant would have starred in “The Undoing” from Warner Brothers, probably directed by someone like Adrian Lyne or Paul Verhoeven . And while it may not have been as self-serious or made as big of a splash as an HBO mini-series in 2020, it would have been a hell of a lot more fun. 

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

• Nicole Kidman as Grace Fraser
• Hugh Grant as Jonathan Fraser
• Noah Jupe as Henry Fraser
• Donald Sutherland as Franklin Reinhardt
• Ismael Cruz Cordova as Fernando Alves
• Matilda De Angelis as Elena Alves
• Edgar Ramírez as Joe Mendoza
• Lily Rabe as Sylvia Steineltz
• Noma Dumezweni as Haley Fitzgerald
• David E. Kelley
• Susanne Bier

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The Undoing of Violet Claybourne

By emily critchley, you must sign in to see if this title is available for request. sign in or register now, send netgalley books directly to your kindle or kindle app, to read on a kindle or kindle app, please add [email protected] as an approved email address to receive files in your amazon account. click here for step-by-step instructions., also find your kindle email address within your amazon account, and enter it here., pub date mar 04 2025 | archive date not set, sourcebooks landmark | sourcebooks landmark, general fiction (adult) | historical fiction | women's fiction, description.

For fans of Sarah Penner and The Foundling comes a slow-burn gothic mystery following Gillian, a young girl enthralled by the enigmatic Claybourne sisters, their house at Thornleigh Hall, and the tragedy that binds them together for good.

To become a Claybourne girl, she'll have to betray one first.

1938. Gillian Larking, lonely and away at boarding school, is used to going unnoticed. But then she meets Violet Claybourne, her vibrant roommate who takes Gilly under her wing. Violet is unlike anyone Gilly has ever met, and she regales Gilly with tales of her grand family estate and her two elegant sisters. Gilly is soon entranced by stories of the Claybournes, so when Violet invites Gilly to meet her family at Thornleigh Hall, she can't believe her luck.

But Gilly soon finds that behind the grand façade of Thornleigh Hall, darkness lurks.

Dazzled by the crumbling manor and Violet's enigmatic sisters, Gilly settles into the estate. But when a horrible accident strikes on the grounds, she is ensnared in a web of the sisters' making, forced to make a choice that will change the course of her life forever. Because the Claybournes girls know how to keep secrets, even at the cost of one of their own.

With ensnaring prose and layers of friendship, privilege, mental health, and more, The Undoing of Violet Claybourne is a poignant book club read with characters you won't soon forget.

For fans of Sarah Penner and The Foundling comes a slow-burn gothic mystery following Gillian, a young girl enthralled by the enigmatic Claybourne sisters, their house at Thornleigh Hall, and the...

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To the Editor:

Re “ Our Bookshelves, Ourselves ,” by Margaret Renkl (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 29):

On Oct. 6 last year, my three children and I lost our home and our dog, Lulu, in a fire.

Of all the objects that were lost that day, the loss of our books has been the most difficult to absorb, and grief over their loss appears in odd, unpredictable ways. (For example, my youngest son has refused to even look at the replacement copy of “The Wild Robot” that I bought him within days of the blaze.)

The books that we were in the middle of reading. The books with jam smears and with water marks from splashy tub read-out-loud sessions. My duct-taped copy of “Women Who Run With the Wolves.” The underlines, the earmarks, the smell of used books that were previously owned by libraries.

This article made me cry with joy and relief. And it made all four of us feel somehow comforted knowing there are people who might understand that what was lost was irreplaceable.

Niki Leffingwell Missoula, Mont.

Like Margaret Renkl, I’m a bibliophile. I’ve been a member of the same book club for 33 years. My family writes books and writes in books, and I am incapable of walking past a Little Free Library without stopping.

Recently, I’ve grown to love audiobooks, too; my husband, Rob, and I listen during road trips. I loved the evocative narrations of “James,” “Circe,” “Hamnet” and “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” and William Hootkins’s interpretation of “Moby-Dick,” a masterpiece that neither Rob nor I had conquered on our own.

Yet I agree with Ms. Renkl: “I will always prefer a book I can hold in my hand.” I like underlining the good parts, scribbling in the margins and shelving a beloved novel among favorites from other chapters of my life. I even have two designated bookshelves for signed books: Tom Wolfe, Sue Grafton, Dr. Spock, Mario Vargas Llosa.

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