'The Last Anniversary' Trailer Threatens All Newcomers to the Island

Best selling author Liane Moriarty and A-List actor Nicole Kidman have found a lucrative franchise in each other as writer and producer, with Kidman's production company financing and creating multiple adaptations of Moriarty's stories including two seasons of Big Little Lies, one season of Nine Perfect Strangers and the Apple TV+ limited series Apples Never Fall. However, in all three cases, these were shows financed and produced by U.S. streaming services with American viewers as the primary audience. Not so with The Last Anniversary, which Kidman boasts is "an Australian project with Australian accents for the world." Having seen the first trailer, I agree; those accents are thick.

The Last Anniversary also differs from the previous adaptations because the material is much older than the other novels selected thus far. Big Little Lies, Moriarity's sixth novel, was published in 2014, Nine Perfect Strangers in 2018, and Apples Never Fall in 2021. The Last Anniversary was Morarity's second-ever novel and the first one to make a dent in the market in Australia; it first came out in 2005, making it a good decade or two older than everything else we've seen from her.

However, one thing is recognizable about the series: it's got that twisted family secret mystery at the center, and a cast full of high profile Australian actors who make sure to rachet up the tension over the dinner table, even if they never quite take it to the extremes of Meryl Streep.