(The name, according to writer-director Alex Ross-Perry, is inspired by the titles of riot grrl zines from the ’90s.) The sun is setting on Becky’s incendiary career, and she’s hell-bent on incinerating everything in its path on the way down. The movie, with a title as idiotic as Moss is good in it, centers on Becky Something, the lead singer of an all-girl rock band with petulance and behavioral issues that would make Courtney Love seem like a saint. It is April 12, which means that, by my count, there are 317 days between now and the 2020 Oscars for me to not shut the hell up about how good Elisabeth Moss is in Her Smell, how she should be nominated for Best Actress, and then bitching insufferably about how she was robbed when she inevitably isn’t because the Academy is dumb. Elisabeth Moss Gives the Performance of the Year (So Far) in 'Her Smell'
It shows the mechanics, the discomfort, and mutual respect involved in two men having sex-something that is never shown on screen and certainly not in a TV show that’s meant to be heartwarming and, like we said before, important. There’s nothing salacious or editorially sexy about it in the way that so many TV shows filter sex. It’s not graphic or gratuitous, but frank and sensitive.
My Google Doc of notes from that part of the series just reads “holy shit!” over and over again for about half a page. It was so realistic in a way no TV show has ever been about gay sex.
Ryan hires a sex worker to lose his virginity to, and the way it’s filmed, frankly, shocked me. Because it bears repeating: I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Glory be!īut the thing about the show I can’t stop thinking about is how it handles its big sex scene. All of that, and no episode runs more than 15 minutes. There’s a fascinating storyline exploring Ryan and his mother’s codependence, in which Jessica Hecht delivers a monologue about the virtues of The Macaroni Grill that I nearly applauded after.
(Ryan is an intern at a website called Eggwoke, which recently pivoted to publishing confessional essays that appeal to “basics,” like “50 Ways to Hate Myself.”) The skewering of millennial culture and media is painfully accurate. There are more laugh lines in the first three minutes than most comedies have in an entire episode.
It’s important, of course, but it undercuts any pretentiousness that might burden it with a lacerating wit and self-effacing attitude towards disability. There are so many reasons to love this show.