Nine Perfect Strangers, Season 1

What’s it about?

Nine individuals who attend a 10-day wellness retreat, led by the enigmatic Masha. Each guest arrives seeking healing, but as the retreat progresses, they uncover unsettling truths about the resort's unconventional methods and confront their own personal traumas.

The facts

• Directed by John-Henry Butterworth and David E. Kelley
• Starring Nicole Kidman (The Others), Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids), Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water), and Luke Evans (Beauty and the Beast)
• Runtime: 8 episodes. Each around 50min each long
• English language

Why did it get this rating?

This series was self-rated by Prime Video. You can find out more about self-rating by streaming providers here.

Content that may disturb

Characters come to an exclusive health resort to deal with addiction, recover and heal from trauma, or to reconnect. As a result there are conversations about suicide, substance abuse, and family feuds.

Violence and content that may disturb

The violence in the series is infrequent and is emotionally intense rather than graphic. For example:

• There is a flashback that depicts a character falling to the ground as a gunshot echoes. We see her with a bloodied face and neck.
• Whilst looking in the mirror, a woman’s nose falls off. It is slightly bloody, and we see muscle and flesh where her nose used to be. It is revealed that this is a hallucination, and her nose is still there.
• A character on psychedelics runs towards another woman and beats her face until its bloody and bruised.
• A character’s nose and mouth start to bleed, and he thinks he is having an aneurism.

Sexual themes

In this show, characters kiss, flirt, and talk about sex. There are sex scenes with some nudity, but they are not graphic.

A man and woman’s buttocks can be seen along with thrusting, during sex. We can hear moaning and see breasts.

Two characters try to give each other ‘energy orgasms’ by moving their fingers above each other’s skin.

We see a montage of the main characters waking up. A couple is seen from the waist up having sex. The woman tells the man “you’re not hard,” and the man tells the woman “you’re not really wet.”

One character reminds her husband that they were once kicked out of a hot spring for having sex in the tubs.

Drug use and dangerous behaviour

Various characters are given psychedelic drugs and chemicals without their consent. This leads to some of them having emotional breakdowns, and frequent, disorienting scenes where they have unsettling dreams and hallucinations.

Offensive language

This show contains the use of strong language, with words like “f**k,” “sh*t,” “a**hole,” and “b*tch.”

When content stays with you:

We all have our boundaries, and it’s completely okay if something you’ve watched is weighing on your mind. If certain content lingers with you, consider having a chat with friends or whānau to debrief about what you’ve just seen. But if you’re still feeling affected, please reach out to any of the following helplines for support.

• 1737
• Safe to talk
• Lifeline
• Youthline

Further information

• Why are ratings and content warnings important for me and my whānau?
• Brain development – how it works, why it matters