Picture: Ana Blumenkron/Netflix
The plot of many a corseted interval drama on which Jessica, the principle character and narrator of Lena Dunham’s new Netflix collection Too A lot, has constructed her picture of England goes one thing like this: An ingénue finds herself in a brand new surroundings, the place she — clumsily, unpreparedly, authentically — falls in love with a distinguished gentleman who loves her again regardless of her “poor connections” and her faults. Usually, this story is ready on a picturesque property, someplace big and stately with loads of corners excellent for working into your potential lover. That is the way it goes for Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy; it’s the way it goes for Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. The tales of their romance have endured over centuries as a result of they’re superbly crafted, sure, but additionally as a result of, like all romances, they’re fantasies. They’re tales wherein an individual’s essence, their inalienable magnetism, can transcend the constraints of society, customized, and ego. A part of what makes Lizzy Bennet so enticing is that Mr. Darcy tries to withstand her pull.
Too A lot is specific about its influences: Jessica, who always refers to Jane Austen novels, is a foreigner in a brand new surroundings, open to being fallen in love with regardless of her kookiness. She’s jaded sufficient by her latest breakup to keep away from the ingénue label, however as a result of it is a present from Lena Dunham, she is unflinchingly honest, a high quality well-matched to Megan Stalter’s earnestness. After we open on “Nonsense & Sensibility,” Jessica is strolling round London contemplating the world of prospects drawn from motion pictures, tv, and books which have grow to be out there to her. A lady in England, she tells Wendy Jones, her ex-boyfriend’s fiancée and the individual to whom her narration is addressed, could be something, whether or not that’s “a strong-willed police sergeant who makes use of her trauma to unravel grisly crimes,” “a intercourse employee with a coronary heart of gold,” or “a carefree social gathering woman together with her complete life forward of her.” What’s in retailer for Jessica to study (it’s apparent from the beginning) is that timeless lesson: You’re taking your self wherever you go.
The pilot is heavy on setup as it really works to ship Jessica to England, inform us why she’s transferring, and set up the flurry of references and archetypes it’s nodding to, from basic British rom-coms like Bridget Jones’s Diary and Notting Hill (each produced, like Too A lot, by Working Title Movies) to Elizabethan and Victorian novels. To anybody conversant in Lena Dunham’s private life, which is anybody who follows her in any sort of approach, it additionally establishes the parallels between herself and Jessica: Dunham is now based mostly in London, the place she received married after a public breakup with the musician and producer Jack Antonoff, who’s in flip now married to the otherworldly lovely actress Margaret Qualley. However such is the character of pilots, particularly at half-hour of runtime: Quite a bit is crammed in at a tempo that may generally suffocate character.
I’m going to keep away from this comparability as a lot as I can, as a result of they’re solely completely different reveals, however the great thing about the Women pilot — Dunham’s televisual masterpiece of the mid-2010s — is that it bombarded you with character. There’s a graininess to that episode that’s smoothed down right here by Netflix’s signature sleekness. As a result of Women was a lot its personal factor, and since its influences have been of the sort extra pushed by character than plot (Intercourse and the Metropolis; the movies of Woody Allen; stuff like Claudia Weill’s 1978 movie Girlfriends and Nicole Holofcener’s 1996 movie Strolling and Speaking), it allowed for character improvement to be the principle driver of story. Megan Stalter’s problem right here is to return off extra like herself and fewer like an imitation of Dunham, to withstand the impulse to do Hannah Horvath in London.
All of that mentioned, how does Jessica discover herself in London within the throes of her breakup with “Zev Jeremiah Goldstein,” who dumped her as a result of he “wasn’t able to be a husband and a father” after which received shortly engaged to Wendy Jones, a social-media influencer performed by — that is necessary — Emily Ratajkowski? A month earlier than she ships off to London, a drunken Jessica breaks into Zev’s condominium — he modified the locks on her — by shattering a window with a backyard gnome, then bursts into their room to demand an evidence for what they did to her. “I need to maintain house for a way you’re feeling … nevertheless it’s giving loopy,” Wendy says, properly, annoyingly, whereas Zev hyperventilates.
Since breaking apart, Jessica has moved again to Lengthy Island together with her fitness-obsessed mom (the always-excellent Rita Wilson); grandmother (Rhea Perlman); lately divorced sister, Nora (Dunham); and nephew, whose quippy eccentricity appears like a continuation of the ladies’s. Jessica calls her household house a “Gray Gardens hell of single ladies,” although the dynamic between them is heat and charming, with the entire Edies’ witticisms and little of their tragedy. These are distinctive, humorous ladies, the sort you’d need to drink wine with, however who at all times find yourself going house alone on the finish of the evening. Although Jess harbored the ambition to be a “nice movie director” with “one thing to say in regards to the feminine expertise,” she ended up within the producer’s chair, the place she’s been for over 15 years.
However she’s a great producer: Taking pictures a business for her firm, Jessica Alba (enjoying herself) desires her to be answerable for the shoot as a substitute of the boastful male director who ignores her insights. However when Alba asks her to take over, Jess freezes — she will be able to’t rise to the event of somebody necessary telling her she’s succesful. It’s when she’s unwinding within the hallways that her boss, Nora’s ex-husband (Andrew Rannells), pulls her apart. He tells Jessica that she hasn’t been the identical because the breakup and gives her a job capturing a Christmas business for 3 months in London, the place she may need an opportunity to search out herself once more and even be somebody new. In addition to, she’s at all times been obsessive about England. “You like motion pictures the place ladies fan themselves and die of tuberculosis and shit,” he pleads.
So, when she arrives, that’s what Jess expects — “Service provider Ivory–sort shit,” an property the place she may fan herself and be attended to by an enthralling solid of neighbors and workers. As a substitute, she finds herself housed at Hoxton Grove Property, an condominium constructing with skinny partitions and profane tenants, and attended to by Gaz, an odd however candy neighbor. Jessica makes use of all of her energy to drag herself out of the self-pitying vortex that engulfs her when, scrolling by way of Wendy’s Instagram, she sees that Zev proposed to her by placing a hoop on a lizard. Bravely, Jess places on an outfit and takes herself to the “pub.”
That is when her luck begins to show round. The band “Felix and the Feelers,” led by the titular Felix, a nail-polished, lipsticked, and wonderful Will Sharpe, performs a moody, grungy tune earlier than their meet-cute within the toilet. Jessica tosses him a “lavatory roll” — that’s rest room paper, for these of us throughout the pond — over the lavatory stall, shortly earlier than a wonderful lady in a foul temper walks away from him on the bar. Jess and Felix meet once more outdoors, as she’s “making an attempt to name an Uber” (in an English-speaking nation, with an app that’s arrange in English. What could possibly be so onerous?!), and he gives to stroll her house. Jess and Felix have prompt chemistry. He’s charming and humorous in that dry British approach, and his openness offers Jess, already an over-sharer, instant cause to open up about her breakup.
However after they get to her “flat” and Jess kisses him, Felix doesn’t kiss her again — he’s been “seeing somebody,” and he’s making an attempt to do issues in a different way this time, a touch for us to be careful for. Jess is sensible sufficient to select up on it, and, mortified by her try at making out, she walks him to the door and refuses to alternate numbers. However Felix is struck by Jess: She advised him that Fiona Apple’s Tidal was the primary CD she ever owned, so he performs “Gradual Like Honey” on the stroll house and decides to show again. In the meantime, Jess is making a front-facing-camera video addressed to Wendy. “The fireplace of my ardour can’t be extinguished,” she seethes, holding a candle beneath her chin. As she turns into extra enrapt in her personal efficiency, she drops the candle, setting the entrance of her Elizabethan-style nightgown on fireplace and unleashing a disaster.
Jessica calls the NHS and paramedics put her beneath the chilly water of the bathe to ease the burn. Gaz is there to supply some well-intentioned help, however his presence is made out of date by Felix’s return. “By God, Wendy,” she narrates, “there he was. My Mr. Darcy. My Rochester. My … Felix.” It’s already apparent that Felix doesn’t have any of Mr. Darcy’s or Rochester’s fortunes, nor their boastful attitudes. However the comparability means that Felix could have secrets and techniques and that this rom-com will construct towards unwelcome revelation. Telling Felix about her disappointment with Hoxton Grove Property, Jessica mentioned she’s “adjusting her expectations.” The perfect rom-coms derive pressure from the truth that such adjustment is antithetical to the event of romance. There’s good chemistry between Stalter and Sharpe, who anchors her kookiness with an even-keeled realism and her open self-consciousness with self-assuredness. I’m already rooting for them, which is how I do know at one level or one other, my coronary heart is sure to interrupt.