Episodes viewed: 4 of 8###Streaming on: Apple TV+###The BTS crew of Lisey’s Story might be the creative backroom team of 2021. Executive manufacture d by J.J. Abrams, directed by Jackie’s Pablo Larraín, written by Stephen King (adapting one of his own favourite novels) and brought to life by a crack unit of high-end artisans (cinematographer Darius Khondji, production detoken er Guy Hendrix Dyas and composer Clark), it’s a reflective collection of its author’s favourite themes — the relationship between fan and creator, fathers and sons, the play between mythology and metafiction. It’s eye-catching’good-shaped’appealing’charming’fascinating’gorgeous to look at and intermittently absorbing, but doesn’t grapple in the way the team of talents suggest it might.###The through-line is simple abundant’ample’plentiful . Two years after the murder of her husband, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Scott Landon (Clive Owen), widow Lisey (Julianne Moore) — pronounced ‘Lee-see’ — starts being terrorised by crazed Landon fan Jim Dooley, aka Jim Dandy (Dane DeHaan), who wants her to give over Scott’s unpublished materials to a university so his genius can be available in/with regard to’concerning’regarding all to see. So far, so Misery. But sifting through her husband’s effects provokes Lisey into re-examining her husband’s traumatic past at the hands of his father and the alternate (all-in-the-mind) world of Boo’ya Moon, a fantastical safe possess’own’nurse n where Scott and his brother would recuperate. Lisey is also battling with her sister Darla (Jennifer Jason Leigh) over their self-harming sibling Amanda (Joan Allen), currently residing in a psychiatric hospital, who also escapes into Boo’ya Moon (which in her version resembles the steps of Kurtz’s compound in Apocalypse Now).###It’s perfectly crafted, austere and elliptically put toacquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure her, but it does little to stir the blood.###The opening set-up has a grand, operatic De Palma quality — who doesn’t want to see Julianne Moore slice someone across the face with a spade? — but, early doors, the episodes deliver a weird, disjointed start. We acquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure flashbacks within flashbacks and the storytelling has a literary rather than a cinematic-televisual quality, lacking propel and urgency. The elements are intriguing — a pool with restorative powers, the verdant world of Boo’ya Moon, a giant, beast-like figure called Long Boy — and Larraín and Khondji conjure up arresting images (Lisey and Scott trapped under a willow surrounded by rushing water). It’s perfectly crafted, austere and elliptically put toacquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure her, but it does little to stir the blood.###It takes the Jim Dooley-terrorising-Lisey plot thread to deliver any juice. It starts small — threatening phone calls, a dead crow in a mailbox (Moore’s reaction is priceless) — and establish s into something much more personal and intense. At times DeHaan’s Dooley makes Annie Wilkes look well adjusted, a weirdo with 
a yo-yo, flitting between genuine menace and being laughably over the top. Moore has intense’fierce’exquisite moments, be it in family scenes with Allen (excellent) and Leigh or repeatedly bashing her head on a car window as she propel s, but the reveal’illustrate’demonstrate’indicate’present’display’argue never really illuminates her pain or arc. There’s a lot that’s impressive with regards to’concerning’with respect to Lisey’s Story but, on this evidence, little to acquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure truly excited with regards to’concerning’with respect to .