Too Much review: Lena Dunham's new Netflix show is gorgeous and romantic, featuring one breakup episode for the ages

Too Much: Playing at a much lower call than Girls, Lena Dunham's new show is still impossibly sweet and disarming in its dissection of romance and intimacy.

Too Much review

Cast: Megan Stalter, Will Sharpe, Michael Zegen, Rita Wilson, Emily Ratajkowski, Naomi Watts, Andrew Scott, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Rhea Perlman

Creator: Lena Dunham and Luis Felber

Star rating: ★★★.5

Lena Dunham's Hannah in Girls said in the Pilot episode that she might just be ‘a voice’ of a generation. That implication has aged fairly well with the acclaimed show, which ran for six seasons and influenced a generation. To bring none of that baggage of expectation for her new show, Too Much, is almost impossible. But this time, Dunham has no such implication to become the voice of her generation with her gregarious American protagonist Jess (Megan Stalter). She just wants to be loved and seen for who she is. Is that too much to ask for?

Megan Stalter and Will Sharper shine in Too Much, now streaming on Netflix.

The premise

The writing is as poignant, funny and prickly as ever in Too Much, a show that balances the awkward situational comedy with pitch-black dramatic moments all of a sudden like a ton of bricks. Jess is fresh off a breakup with her long-term boyfriend (Michael Zegen), who has now settled for a social media influencer (Emily Ratajkowski). Jess makes the decision to move to London for her new job, but who is she kidding? She is here with the promise of romance, like a Darcy, or like an Alan Rickman in Sense and Sensibility. There, on the first night at a local pub, she meets Felix (Will Sharpe, so wonderful and effective here). He is a broke indie musician, but who cares, he is cute enough and this sets off for a journey of their relationship together, cataloguing the highs of lows of truly getting to know one person inside out.

What works

But as Lena Dunham suggests, falling in love with someone new is harder when falling out of love with the ex is still left. It is not just love that has formed the residue after a bitter breakup, but the amount of disapproval that they have been put through. Is it semi-autobiographical? Might as well be, because when Dunham does get to the messier bits of the bitter ex, the interiority of that toxic relationship is laid bare with heartbreaking intensity. The show's fifth episode, ‘Pink Valentine’, is a marvel in writing and dialogue. There are no easy words here, but they are expressed with a bareness that arrives like a gut-punch. It is one breakup episode for the ages.

Too Much is sometimes a little unsure of its own moorings, primarily because its lead protagonist is still figuring it out the same way. That's okay too. Jess is still not worldly enough to project her confidence in the things that matter to her, and what Lena Dunham suggests is patience. Love requires days. It feeds on time. Time to see each other off, to be able to say anything and regret it minutes later, but at least say it out loud. But it still remains unabashedly funny, which works because the show takes itself with a lightness of touch, appreciating these characters slowly as the curtain behind their dysfunction is pulled out bit by bit.

Styled with so much flair and constantly feeling a lot of things at once, Megan Stalter gives a breakout turn that carries Too Much even in its shakiest bits. Her scenes with Will Sharpe crackle with energy and awkward intensity. This is also Sharpe's best performance to date; his Felix has a standout scene when he finally opens up about his anxieties and says that he has never been ‘tucked in’. Special mention for a hilarious special appearance by Andrew Scott, who arrives as this American director renowned for making films on sex workers, finally letting his guard down as he instructs Jess to tell ‘direct me’ while making love. It has to go down as one of the funniest scenes on Television this year. Elsewhere, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Naomi Watts offer great supporting turns.

Too Much might come off as conventional, a little cliche-ridden, and like her chaotic heroine Jess, sometimes on the verge of falling apart. But it still manages to gather its pieces of heartbreak, hope and messiness with an acerbic sense of purpose. Sometimes love is just a leap of faith, whether it lands too far away from that sweet fantasy is what life has to offer. At its best, Too Much suggests that taking that leap of faith is worth it.