The renaissance of Kathryn Hahn has been one of the few bright spots in the bleakness of the last few years. It officially began (though she had been ramping up her work via the likes of Transparent and the wonderful Mrs Fletcher before that) with her turn as nosy neighbour-cum-witch Agatha Harkness in Disney’s 2021 hit WandaVision, and she is now the central figure of the streaming platform’s new series Tiny Beautiful Things.
The drama is based on Cheryl Strayed’s 2012 collection of essays of the same name, which were themselves based on the responses she used to write for the Dear Sugar problem page of online literary magazine the Rumpus. Into it, she channelled her many and varied life experiences – good and extraordinarily bad, all of which would become familiar to millions when her memoir, Wild, went on to be an Oprah-anointed global phenomenon. She delivered compassionate and brilliantly written replies to those seeking solace from the anonymous agony aunt. If, to the average UK sensibility, they often veered towards the emetic and set off oversharing alarm bells – well, that’s probably our problem and not hers. But it does mean that you might want to approach the latest iteration of her work with either caution or a determinedly open, uncynical mindset, however unnatural it feels. I think it’s the best way to get through it.
