Pieces Of Her Trailer: Toni Collette Is A Mom With A Dangerous Secret Past

As British novelist William Makepeace Thackeray famously once said, "Mother is God in the eyes of a child." They also said that in "Silent Hill," but now we're just splitting hairs. In the newest twisted, mystery, thriller series from Netflix, the teams behind "Big Little Lies" and "The Undoing" are tackling Karin Slaughter's New York Times–bestselling novel, "Pieces of Her." The series was adapted by showrunner and executive producer Charlotte Stoudt ("Homeland," "House of Cards," "Fosse/Verdon"), with Minkie Spiro ("The Plot Against America," "Better Call Saul," "Dead to Me") serving as director. The eight-episode series is being executive-produced by Slaughter, Steve Hutensky, Casey Harver, Janice Williams, Lesli Linka Glatter, and Bruna Papandrea.

Academy Award-nominee Collette confessed to Vogue that playing the part was "emotionally demanding," and was "truly exhausted by the end." Collette's statements track considering the series' intense subject matter. "Pieces of Her" focuses on Andy Oliver (Bella Heathcote), a young woman who has spent her whole life in the same small town and believes she knows everything about her mother, Laura (Toni Collette). When a weekend venture inadvertently puts Andy in the crosshairs of a random act of violence, she witnesses her mother transform into something she's never seen, subduing the perpetrator and saving her life. Andy is shocked at what she's witnessed and begins investigating her mother's past, but when video footage of Laura's swift takedown goes viral, Laura's past comes back to haunt her and puts both her and Andy in danger.

"The Neon Demon" and "Relic" star Bella Heathcote's voice opens the trailer, asking the question "You ever have that thing where you think you know someone as well as you could possibly know anyone and then one day you were totally wrong?" The phrase is backed against a recording of a young woman playing the piano for a crowded room of well-dressed wealthy people, the young woman presumably a younger version of Collette's character. What follows is the horrific targeting of Heathcote's Andy by a man with a gun, Collette's Laura saving the day, and then having the bleak realization that her face has been plastered all over the 24-hour news cycle.

"You don't have much time, you have to leave," Laura tells her daughter. "You can't talk to anyone — no calls, no texts, nothing." If it weren't for the accompanying trailer, reading these lines sounds like a Liam Neeson movie. Colette and Heathcote are joined by Jessica Barden, Jacob Scipio, Joe Dempsie, Aaron Jeffery, Omari Hardwick, Gil Birmingham, David Wenham, Calum Worthy, Nicholas Burton, and Terry O'Quinn, and all eight episodes of "Pieces of Her" will be available to stream on Netflix on March 4, 2022.