Despite being radically different from Rufi Thorpe’s 2024 novel, David E. Kelley’s (Big Little Lies) Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a jolly ride. The characters are quirky but real, rounded and relatable.

There is Margo (Elle Fanning), a 20-year-old aspiring writer who has to drop out of school after her married professor, the wimpy Mark Gable (Michael Angarano), gets her pregnant.

Margo decides to keep the baby, and once the adorable Bodhi is born, she has to figure out a way to support them as child care is too expensive and often not available. Margo’s mum, ex-Hooters waitress, Shyanne (Michelle Pfeiffer), is not much help, obsessed as she is with her looks.

When Margo’s estranged father, Jinx (Nick Offerman), a former pro wrestler and recovering addict, lands up outside Margo’s door, she sees a way out by creating adult content online, using Jinx’s experience in selling a story, marketing, and lighting angles.

One of Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ strengths is the rounded characters. None of them, including the people around Margo, are one-note cutouts. Shyanne might be shallow, but she also loves Margo in her own way and sees in Margo’s choices the trajectory of her own life.

Jinx is complex, conflicted, and wishes to be a father to Margo, to make up for all the time he spent away touring or with his family (he was married when he had the affair with Shyanne). He loves Shyanne, who also loves him but has decided to marry Kenny (Greg Kinnear), who, apart from being the straitlaced youth minister, is deeply in love with Shyanne and does not freak out as much as expected when he learns of Bodhi and Margo’s chosen line of work.

Susie (Thaddea Graham), Margo’s roommate, also has a life away from Margo, with her cosplay and her passion for wrestling. And there is Lace (Nicole Kidman), a former wrestler now a lawyer, who helps Margo with the custody battle she is slapped with. If there is one cliché, it is Mark’s mum, Elizabeth (Marcia Gay Harden), who is cast as the evil, controlling mother, though Harden has a lot of fun with the part.

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Like the book, there is a brightness and lightness to the show despite dealing with serious topics of the stigma of sex work and women’s rights over their bodies. There is the very real danger of trolls and doxing, as well as the endless cycle of addiction and rehab and the dreaded knock from the Child Protection Services. While it is disappointing not to meet Margo’s love interest, JB, and to see Kenny positioned as the villain of the piece, the finale points to JB playing an important role in Season 2 which has been greenlit.

The eight episodes whiz by in a series of neon-lit, almost science-fiction-like frames, alternating with baby Bodhi’s cute gurgles and smiles. While it is tough being a single mother, and surely it cannot be so easy to earn money matching penises to their Pokémon avatars, Margo’s Got Money Troubles wins out with excellent performances (Pfeiffer stalks the screen like the Catwoman she once was) and a feather-light touch, proving that, even in chaos, Margo’s world holds together with surprising grace.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles is currently streaming on Apple TV+