'The Last Thing He Told Me' review: Jennifer Garner miniseries won't hold your interest

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine production juggernaut comes out with another high-profile contemporary novel adaptation in "The Last Thing He Told Me," based on Laura Dave's 2021 bestseller.

Apple TV+ makes the smart move of getting back in business with Witherspoon's company, joining Prime Video ("Daisy Jones & the Six") and Hulu ("Tiny Beautiful Things") with splashy recent premieres adapted from popular books.

Jennifer Garner stars as Hannah Michaels, whose life on a lovely Bay Area houseboat with husband Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and teenage stepdaughter Bailey (Angourie Rice) becomes permanently altered when Owen disappears.

The first two episodes of the seven-episode miniseries, created by Dave along with Josh Singer (an Oscar-winning screenwriter for "Spotlight"), have premiered on the streaming service.

MY SAY The "Big Little Lies" vibes are strong in this new production, at least based on a screening of those first two episodes, and not just because that hit show, too, came from Hello Sunshine.

It takes place in the same glossy universe, where every strand of hair never falls out of place and every bit of wardrobe has a perfectly manicured style, while the locations practically glitter with chicness. 

But the aesthetic similarities do not extend to the entertaining melodrama that served as a hallmark of, at least, the first "Big Little Lies" season. Nor is there a focus on anything about these people and their lives that would suggest that the series has anything on its mind beyond the progression of its basic plot.

So we get a lot of scenes in which Garner tries very hard to seem very worried. Hannah makes lots of phone calls to lots of people, gets paid a visit by some law enforcement types, tracks down Owen's friends and just generally seems to be awfully confused if not especially alarmed.

Meanwhile, Bailey goes on her own parallel journey of coping, especially after dad leaves both of them vague handwritten notes and a duffel bag of cash. That's usually not a good sign, when that happens.

After his initial disappearance, Owen turns up in a bunch of flashbacks, but he has not a shred of personality, charisma, or any other attribute that might suggest an aura of mystery or danger.

"Game of Thrones" fans will know that it's not because Coster-Waldau lacks the ability to go there: His Jaime Lannister stands as one of the great, complicated characters in TV history, in many respects the heart and soul of the whole production.

It's all about the writing, in this case, and the utter lack of depth, or inner life, or suggestion that anything of particular interest might be happening here.

In a basic sense, sure, anyone who hasn't read the novel might be intrigued enough to see where things wind up. But that's because human nature demands that we know how stories end. "The Last Thing He Told Me" offers not a single extra reason to keep watching.

BOTTOM LINE When considering the enormous glut of content on streaming service after streaming service, there's simply no good reason to bother with this one.