‘Too Much’ Review: Lena Dunham’s Netflix Romantic Dramedy Has Some Issuesues

In the Closing Minutes of the Second Episode, Jess (Megan Stalter), The Brash American Protagonist of Netflix’s Too MuchLies Down with The Mix CD Her New British Beau, Felix (Will Sharpe), Has Made for Her. After Positioning The Headphones Over Her Ears, He Leans Back As Well, Content to Just Curl Up on the Bed Beside Her As She Lystons. No More Words Are Exchanged, and No Bodily Fluids Either. But as the Camera Lingers on Their Gentle Expressions, We Feel For OurSelves the Specialness of Their Bond, The Profound Comfort and PleSure at Each of Other’s Prescription.

It’s a lovely Moment of Intimacy, All the More Disarming for Being So Unassuming. IT ALSO, Unfortunately, Turns Out to Be Something of A Rarity in The 10-Episode Series. Inspired by the Real-Life Courtship Between ITS Married Creates, Lena Dunham and Luis Felber, Too Much is nothing if not candid, Analyzing it leads’ Red Flags with the Clear-Eyed Empathy of A Seasoned Therapist. But it struggles to lose itlf in itts imotions, yielding a romance that’s Sweet Enough to Like But Too Cool to Fall Head Over Heels for.

The Distance Does Not STEM FROM Any Particular Coyness About Its Characters. In the first minutes of the dunham-doirected premiere, Jess Breaks Into the Brooklyn Apartment That Her Ex, Zev (Michael Zegen) Shares with His Knitting Influencer Girlfrie. By the end of it roughly 30 minutes, Jess Has Made Her Way to London in HOPES OF A FRESH START – ONLY TO ACCIDENTALLY SET HERELF ON FIRE HER FIRST NIGHT THERE, LEAVING HER SHOUTING FOR Equivalent of 911 Might Be. EDearingly Klutzy Heroines May Be a Staple of the Richard Curtis Rom-Coms and Jane Austen Adaptations Jess Autores, But She’s Bloown Past “Adorkable” Into “MESSY,” EVEN IF SHEUOUSUUS

Not that her mr. Darcy has it Much More Together. Broke Indie Musician Felix, Whom She First Sees Performing in a Grimy Pub, Comes With His Own Share of Addition- and Trauma-Related Baggage Season. The Series is Unspiring in Its Cataloguing of the Couple’s Highs and Lows Together, Wheth It’s A Blissed-Out Night of Screwing Until they Physichally Wedding for Felix’s Most Insuffrabbly Snotty Schoolmates.

Through it all, Too Much‘s not-so-secret weapon is Dunham and Felber’s Dialogue, Just Snappy Enough To Sound More Interesting Than Real People But Not so Clever It by Reeks of Writerly Self They’re able to conjure anentire lifetime of hopes and disappeintments for jress with An Offhand Line Like, “I Just Need to Adjust My Expert Chemistry Between Felix and Jess Within Minutes of Meeting Via Slightly Dark, Slightly Offbeat Riffing About Murder and Nefarious Wi-Fi Signals.

We Grasp in An Instanta The Affectionate-But-Exasperated Dynamic Among Jess’ Family-Big Sis Nora (Dunham), Mom Lois (Rita Wilson) and Grandma Dottie (Rhea Perlmaner) Gardens Hell ”on Long Island – WHEN We HEAR THEM JOKING About Blowjobs While Streaming Sense and Sensiness. Or Zev’s Particular Brand of CRAPPY-Ex-Boyfriend-Nees Who Wee Hear The Way He Talks to Jess in Flashbacs, with Invults Disguced As Compliments ABUTS ABULTULTUL “Too Smart” to enjoy the miley cyrus track shee’s jamming out to.

And Yet, Despite Itck for Nailing Characters with A Single Sennce and Its Willingness to Embrace All Their Faults and Foibles, Too Much Feels Emotionally Distant, As if We’re Being Told About All of Tese Experiences Rater Than Invited Into Them. The Disconnect Comes Through Most Strongly in the Subplots Involving Supporting Characters, Like The Flirtations Between Jess’ Various Marking Coworkers Grant). While We Might Be Priy to Major Developments – A FIRST DATE, A BREAKUP, A RECONCILIATION – Nearly All The Connet Tissue Happens Offscreen. THESE ARIN’T journeys We’re Taking with Them, so Much as the sort of intermittent Updates you might glean from a Instagram Posts or A gossipy mutual Acquaintance.

But The Remove Comes Through As Well, and More FrUSTRATING, IN JESS AND FELIX’S RELATIONSHIP. It Doesn’t Help that Stalter is Uneven in Her Lead Turn. While She Can Be Touching in Jess’ Quiet, Vulnerable Moments – Especialally Opposite The Mldwer and More Ground performanCes by Sharpe and Zegen – She Stugggles With. Outbursts, as if she wasn’t figured out how to go big without turning it into Kind of Joky Bit That She Regularly Steals scenes with Hacks.

Far More of the blame, However, Lies in the Show’s Choice to Focus SO Heavily on Unpacing Itral Couple’s Baggage that It Loses Sight of Wy Any of Us of Us of Us. For a whirlwind romance, Too Much Feels awfully dispussionate. While There’s Plenty of Enthusiastic Sex and Confessional Conversation, There Are Few of the Lingering Gazes or Intense Close-Ups that Might Bring Us Into Their Shoes, and ALOW US’S’S they do. And without that visceral Sense of Desire, Too Much Comes Off Less Like A Romance Unfolding for Our Pleasure, and More Like A Coupples Therapy Session Being Held for Teir Benefit.