Setting the auspices aside, the sorority of school moms only makes the comparisons to “Big Little Lies” more unavoidable. The most galvanizing presence, in fact, turns out to be Donald Sutherland as Grace’s wealthy father, who never much liked her spouse and uses his money and influence to help his daughter, without supporting any inclinations she might have about standing by her man. The question is whether Grace can believe that the man she married and loved could have actually committed such a brutal crime – a Hitchcockian conundrum if there ever was one, but which proves a little weak in its presentation. Things begin to unravel quickly thereafter, with the police sniffing around and new revelations emerging about the depth of Jonathan’s betrayal. Their happy life, however, is upended when the mother of one of his patients is found dead, after the woman (Italian actress Matilda de Angelis) – haughtily dismissed as a scholarship case by Grace’s wealthy parent friends from her son’s private school – had awkwardly entered her social circle. The “undoing” of the title refers to the privileged, pampered life of Kidman’s Grace Fraser, a therapist married to a pediatric oncologist, Jonathan (Hugh Grant). Another obvious comparison would be HBO’s “The Night Of,” also built around a murder, although in a way that proved considerably more compelling. Like “ Big Little Lies,” it’s adapted from a novel, and the entire limited series was directed by Oscar-winning Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, which in theory provides a continuity of vision similar to “Lies” director Jean-Marc Vallee. Kelley, the six-part production hinges on a murder mystery and trial, but even with its twists and feints, doesn’t possess the requisite qualities to become another viewing obsession. “The Undoing” owes debts to earlier high-class HBO miniseries, but the net effect feels like “Big Little Lies Lite.” Reuniting Nicole Kidman and writer-producer David E.
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