Seeds of SORROW

What to expect from an Australia-set mystery starring SIGOURNEY WEAVER

- IAN MACEWAN

THE LOST FLOWERS OF ALICE HART
NEW FROM FRI 4 AUGUST, PRIME VIDEO DRAMA (FIRST THREE EPS FROM 4 AUG, THEN WEEKLY)

Best known for her out-of-this-world adventures in the Alien and Avatar film franchises, Hollywood star Sigourney Weaver is back on terra firma for her latest project, seven-part drama The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.

Based on Holly Ringland’s 2018 debut novel of the same name and from the producers of US hits Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers, the series launches on Prime Video from Friday 4 August with a triple bill before airing weekly.

Set in Australia, the story revolves around three generations of the fractured Hart clan, whose dark secrets and lies are slowly revealed after austere matriarch June (Sigourney) takes in her traumatised nine-year-old granddaughter, Alice (Nine Perfect Strangers’ Alyla Browne), following a tragedy.

FAMILY MISFORTUNE

At first sight, young Alice’s rural childhood looks idyllic, as she plays on the beach with her pregnant mother Agnes (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), takes boat trips with her father Clem (Charlie Vickers) and dances around the kitchen with her apparently love-struck parents.

But all is not quite as it seems in the Hart household, and when Alice needs to find a new home after a fatal fire, concerned local librarian Sally Morgan (Asher Keddie), who has her own troubled family history, offers to look after her.

Yet Sally's plans are thwarted when Clem's estranged mother, the formidable June, decides to take in the granddaughter she's never met, having initially shown no interest in raising her.