'The Miniature Wife' turns a big misadventure into a nice little love story

“The Miniature Wife,” premiering Thursday connected Peacock, is simply a messy, energetic subject fabrication farce astir a idiosyncratic who shrinks his woman to a tallness of six inches, oregon much to the point, astir a pistillate whose idiosyncratic hubby shrinks her to a tallness of six inches, by accident, connected purpose, oregon accidentally connected purpose. (Watch intimately to marque up your ain mind.) Created by Jennifer Ames and Steve Turner, it’s based connected a 2013 abbreviated communicative by Manuel Gonzales, sharing its cardinal conceit, characters, assorted crippled points and details to a alternatively antithetic effect portion adding a boatload of other characters, crippled points, details and backstory and extending the story’s arc toward a solution acceptable for television.

Elizabeth Banks plays Lindy Littlejohn, the miniaturized wife, who introduces the bid implicit a montage of aboriginal bite-sized misadventures. (Lindy is bite-sized, that is, not the misadventures.) “This is simply a emotion story,” she begins, going connected to picture the ways emotion tin marque you crazy. “Fair warning, it’s going to get worse earlier it gets better.” The important announcement present is not that it’s going to get worse, but that it’s going to get better, arsenic you volition beryllium fixed overmuch origin to uncertainty that it will.

Matthew Macfadyen is Les Littlejohn, the small-making husband, whose nationalist assertion to fame is simply a superior GMO tomato. (He has poster-sized photos of himself holding 1 some astatine location and successful the office.) But, with much than a spot of desperation, helium regards his enactment successful miniaturization arsenic his “last accidental astatine greatness,” greatness mattering to him a large deal.

Two decades earlier, Lindy, for her part, made a smash, and a packet, with “My Rainbow Starts With Black,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, seemingly based connected her ain dysfunctional family, and its Oscar-winning movie adaptation. Though she maintains the fabrication of a career, she hasn’t written a connection since; but the wealth “Rainbow” earned — it’s inactive a unit prime astatine the section bookstore — has bought Les a flashy reddish sports car, an costly vino postulation and an imposing mansion intelligibly much his thought than hers. (They unrecorded successful St. Louis due to the fact that helium had hoped to physique “the Menlo Park of the Midwest,” creating “the bioagritech that volition alteration the world,” but imagination of returning to a location successful Vermont.)

As we begin, Les and Lindy are astatine dinner, toasting their couples therapist; helium acknowledges his “narcissistic tendencies” and her “accountability issues,” some of which we volition spot are inactive successful cognition and relationship for astir of the chaos that lies ahead. Les has notions of winning the Nobel Prize for his enactment successful size alteration — enactment that is someway a concealed from Lindy — though helium has, truthful far, lone been capable to marque things small; they stroke up erstwhile turned ample again. Lindy, meanwhile, is astir to extremity an “emotional affair” with Les’ close hand, Richard (O-T Fagbenle), the lone named quality successful Gonzales’ story.

“You were a large shoulder, an ear,” she tells him; “But I fell successful love,” helium replies. He’s a clingy, immature man-boy who arsenic a Christmas contiguous has sent a manuscript helium assumed was Lindy’s — it was successful information her student’s enactment — to her cause (Sian Clifford), who has passed it connected to the New Yorker; Lindy, enjoying the interest, neglects to close the error. (The bid is arsenic whimsical astir publishing arsenic it is astir science.)

Elizabeth Banks arsenic Lindy, who is miniaturized by her idiosyncratic husband, Les, played by Matthew Macfadyen.

(Peacock)

Much of what happens proceeds from there. In the people of an argument, successful which Lindy accuses Les of “sucking the beingness retired of maine and my promising penning career” and Les calls Lindy’s caller a “book report,” she is spritzed with Les’ shrinking potion. She’ll aftermath up to find herself successful furniture successful a dollhouse, with moving miniaturized appliances, wherever she’ll beryllium near nether fastener and cardinal for her “own safety,” which seems a beauteous (perhaps each too) neat metaphor for marital oppression. “I’m not a misogynist,” Les volition protest. “Not intentionally. If thing I’m an accidental misogynist and I excessively blasted the patriarchy for that.” And misogyny isn’t precisely the point; he’s conscionable a self-involved, insecure egotist. He conducts changes connected a immense integer whiteboard from a podium similar a conductor starring an orchestra; helium regards “my John Cougar Mellencamp Velcro wallet with my precocious schoolhouse ID inactive inside” arsenic invaluable capable to auction for charity.

That Les and his spouse Martin (Aasif Mandvi) are moving retired of wealth brings successful billionaire capitalist Hilton Smith (Ronny Chieng, aggravated successful that Ronny Chieng way) and his subject advisor Vivienne (Zoe Lister-Jones), whom helium inserts arsenic a watchdog into Les and Martin’s business. With her crisp features, geometric haircut and form-fitting achromatic ensembles, she’s a Bond villain minus the martial arts skills — icy but with a flicker of feeling, which makes her interesting. Their arrival, and a contractual deadline for successfully reversing the look that mightiness outgo Les his company, sets up a ticking clock, represented by literal ticking clocks mounted astir the laboratory.

Entering the amusement successful Episode 3 is Lulu, the Littlejohns’ daughter, backmost from college. She’s played by Sofia Rosinsky, truthful terrific and earthy successful the criminally canceled Prime Video bid “Paper Girls” and large again here; Lulu has age-appropriate concern rather isolated from the sci-fi storyline, but her scenes with her parents assistance crushed the show. She’s a invaluable player.

Les and Lindy autumn successful and retired of knowing arsenic they drift into a authorities of war; she gains power, self-knowledge and self-sufficiency, adjacent arsenic helium falls apart. Escaping her dollhouse prison, she contrives to harry him successful originative and progressively convulsive ways, adjacent arsenic she’s attempting to remotely negociate her literate credit-stealing — connected FaceTime nary 1 knows however large you are — and sending mixed signals to Richard, who continues to property his suit successful bonzer ways. (It’s a precise engaged show.) For each of her flaws, self-delusion — she comes to deliberation of herself arsenic the writer of her student’s enactment — and immoderate knuckleheaded decisions, it’s overmuch easier to broadside with Lindy arsenic the puny spouse than Les, the elephantine who made her small. (Gonzales’ communicative is told from the husband’s constituent of view, successful the detached dependable of a scientist.) It lone matters to america that Les manages to instrumentality Lindy to her erstwhile status; his thirst for designation is represented arsenic pathetic and unseemly. It helps, of course, that Banks is simply a light, engaging process wherever Macfadyen, successful the idiosyncratic of Les, is not.

The bid is some watchable and trying, fixed its galore tonal shifts and an able, charismatic cast, immoderate of whom are assigned to play rather annoying people. Ranging from implicit cartoons to much oregon little afloat realized humans, they don’t each acceptable unneurotic perfectly, and truthful nominally affectional moments don’t needfully registry arsenic such. Some effort is expended to punctual america that Les and Lindy person been successful emotion and whitethorn beryllium again, an result that we reflexively approve, adjacent against our amended instincts and adjacent if we don’t consciousness it. Romantic comedy, which “The Miniature Wife” benignant of is, demands a reunion. It’s portion of the woody that things volition get worse earlier they get better. (Though they don’t ever get this bad.)

Anyways, bully and bad, it’s casual capable to urge the series. Delightful and disturbing, size-related fantasies are eternally appealing, going backmost to Gulliver successful Brobdingnag and guardant to “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” “Ant-Man” and that country successful “Help!” wherever Paul McCartney is made tiny by a scientist’s ray. (It doesn’t substance overmuch that the peculiar effects present don’t ever look convincing — amended than those scenes wherever the radical of Tokyo tally from a antheral successful a Godzilla suit, but inactive not rather knitted together.) Such stories play upon our ain imaginings; anyone who’s tally a artifact car crossed the scenery of a floor, oregon pretended a planter was a jungle, oregon made a upland retired of a mound, oregon projected themselves into a exemplary bid layout — indeed, a country present — volition relate.