Elena offers Mia a job as “house manager,” which involves cooking and cleaning, after she sees that Mia works part-time at a Chinese restaurant. Elena then takes an interest in Mia that plays out through the entire series.

Mia’s surroundings inspire her art, and when she arrives in Shaker, she rents Elena’s apartment. Mia Warren, mother of teenage Pearl Warren (Lexi Underwood), is an artist, which is why she and her daughter are constantly traveling in their beat up Volkswagen Rabbit, never living in one place for too long. She has curated a perfect family, a perfect home, a perfect community, a perfect life, and she even manages a perfect rental property where she houses those in need! Elena is hell-bent on keeping everything exactly the way it is - until she meets Mia (Kerry Washington). And that, ladies and gentleman, is the point. I know what you’re thinking: so far, Elena is a perfectly normal, if not boring, character. Having read the book before the television series was even a twinkle in Witherspoon’s eye, I knew that Elena Richardson was a seemingly flawless mother of four, the wife of Bill Richardson (who is a successful lawyer), a resident of suburban Shaker Heights, Ohio, and a part-time journalist at her local newspaper (she would be full-time, but motherhood interrupted her career).

With themes about race, class, sexuality, motherhood, and so much more, how could Reese Witherspoon resist her innate desire to elevate the novel from page to screen? With the help of her production company, Hello Sunshine the esteemed Liz Tigelaar, who developed the novel into a compelling mini-series and none other than Kerry Washington appearing in the all-star cast, Witherspoon launched into action.Īs I turned on the first episode of “Little Fires,” I remember being taken aback by the thought of Reese Witherspoon, who tends to portray characters who are honest, raw, and real, playing Elena Richardson. Set in the 1990s, Celeste Ng’s “Little Fires Everywhere” was a serious page turner.

Little fires everywhere themes