After the success of Big Little Lies, it’s not a surprise that there are more adaptations of author Liane Moriarty’s books in the works. One of these is Nine Perfect Strangers, a new Hulu drama about nine people attending the same ten-day retreat at a health spa called Tranquilium. Neither Tranquilium nor its owner Masha are as they seem, but the twists and turns that occur throughout the week unfold slightly differently in the book and in the show. Even in the first three episodes, Nine Perfect Strangers has taken Moriarty’s book in a new direction. Here are the biggest changes so far:
Tranquilium House
Tranquilium itself is portrayed very differently from the spa in Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers. Aside from shifting the entire setting from Australia to the United States (which was also done for Big Little Lies), the Tranquilium House in the books is a Victorian mansion, “sandstone, three storys, with a red corrugated-iron roof and a princess tower.” The interior is much more old-fashioned as well. Hulu’s Tranquilium is of course a much more modern-looking health spa, all glass and concrete, perhaps to better reflect the American conception of what a woo-woo health spa for rich people looks like these days.
Marconi Money
In the show, Napoleon Marconi makes a huge deal out of Masha offering a large discount to the Marconi family for their stay at Tranquilium. Since the ten-day cleanse is described as very expensive, this suggests that the Marconis aren’t in the same socioeconomic bracket as the rest of the guests. In the books, nobody mentions a discount and it’s assumed the Marconis are as rich as everyone else.
Masha’s Near-Death Experience
Masha’s has also changed for the adaptation. Nicole Kidman certainly looks the part of book Masha (“A supermodel. An Olympic athlete. At least six feet tall with corpse-white skin and green eyes so striking and huge they were almost alienlike.”), her TV backstory of being shot dead in a parking lot and brought back to life by Yao isn’t quite how it goes in the original story. Masha, still a high powered executive in the books, suffers a heart attack on the job and Yao is the less than helpful EMT who responds to the call. In both versions he comes to work for Tranquilium anyway.
The Noble Silence
Now for the biggest change from the book to the TV show: a lot of the dialogue spoken by the characters in these episodes doesn’t actually occur in the book. The ten-day cleanse in book Tranquilium begins with the “noble silence,” a five-day period in which none of the guests are allowed to speak to stop them from forming bonds with each other. Some of them talk anyway, but a lot of the details about their lives that the show reveals through dialogue are taken from each character’s internal monologue during the noble silence.
RIP That Poor Goat
Episode 3’s dramatic plot wherein Tony kills Masha’s pet goat and everyone enjoys a feast culminating with Heather realizing that Masha has been drugging them, straight up does not happen in the books. There’s no goat, Tony doesn’t have a moment of ethical carnivorous regression, and the guests certainly don’t get wine in the middle of the week. It’s still book Heather who realizes what’s going on, but it’s during a group therapy-slash-meditation session after the five days of the noble silence have ended.
This Stuff Too
There are a few other small things that are different in Nine Perfect Strangers the show and Nine Perfect Strangers the book, including Yao’s romantic relationships with Masha (he’s casually hooking up with Delilah in the book, can’t blame them for wanting to put Manny Jacinto in a love triangle), Lars’ profession (he’s a divorce lawyer in the book), and those mysterious threats Masha receives through the week (won’t spoil, but they’re not a mystery in the book). For the most part it’s an adaptation that captures the spirit of the book and especially of the characters. Seriously, everyone is perfectly cast.
We’ll update this post as more episodes of Nine Perfect Strangers stream on Hulu and potentially deviate from Moriarty’s book even more.
Nine Perfect Strangers is streaming on Hulu.
