The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is adapted from the 2018 novel of the same name written by Holly Ringland. The first episode of the miniseries introduces us to a family and sets an interesting and tense tone for the subsequent episodes. 

 

Upon first glance the family is idyllic. A married couple, Clem (Charlie Vickers) and Agnes (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), live in a remote house on the Australian coast. They have a daughter, Alice (Alyla Browne), who seemingly dotes on her parents. Trigger warning: things are not as perfect as they appear with both Agnes and Alice sporting ugly bruises on their arms consistently throughout the episode. 

 

A librarian, Sally (Asher Keddie), notices the bruises and tells her cop husband John (Alexander England) to investigate the home. This only causes more issues for Agnes and Alice, but Sally who has lost her own child to cancer, plays a large role in making sure Alice is okay throughout the first episode.

 

As we’re buckling up for a series that seems to be steering us towards a woman and her child navigating domestic abuse, a horrible event occurs and Alice is sent to live with her estranged grandmother June (Sigourney Weaver) instead. June runs a flower farm with her partner, Twig (Leah Purcell), and women she refers to as The Flowers. She is a stern and stony-faced woman who wasn’t close with her son Clem, and there’s something mysterious about her. 

 

The standout of the first episode is Browne who carries much of the story. Utilizing a child actor can be risky, but Browne easily conveys all of the confusion and heartbreak of a child who has an abusive father and who can’t understand why certain things are happening to her. Weaver isn’t in the episode until the final third but she is a strong presence and plays things close to the chest. She does lean into the cowboy hat schtick and we all know this isn’t her first rodeo so it works. 

 

Most of the episode revolves around things that are not said. We don’t know much about Clem or Agnes and how they met. We don’t know exactly why June doesn’t speak to her son, although we have a pretty solid guess. We don’t know why June has a room for Agnes at her flower farm. And we don’t know why wooden statues keep appearing in the lives of the main characters. It’s a slow burn as The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart utilizes the silence of things unsaid and leaves several mysteries unanswered. Even if we didn’t care about what happens to Alice (we do), we’d tune into episode two just to have the mystery of the wooden statues revealed.