Her Smell

Much like it's titular character, this movie is often a big mess with glimmers of promise poking through the cracks. It aims to embody the archetype of the rock 'n roll downward spiral, but really just comes off like Courtney Love cosplay. Elizabeth Moss is an immensely talented actress, but she may be playing this character a little over the top. They beat the point into the ground that she messes up everything she touches, but before long she becomes insufferable to watch and impossible to root for. Of course this is the intent on some level, so in a way, it does succeed. It has success elsewhere with the camera work and almost Birdman-esque way they stitched together some near one take scenes that nicely capture the frantic backstage energy. Some scenes do drag a bit though and the film struggles to justify it's 2+ hr run-time.

I kind of liked this movie. The realistic footage and acting were compelling. But ultimately there is just not enough interesting material to sustain such a long movie. What was the director/producer thinking? The same story, the same vibe, the same message, etc. could have easily been told as a 1:30 or 1:40 moved -- a good 40 minuted of filler less. At some point I just got bored, which is a shame as there was a good movie (still nothing amazing, but a 6.5 I want to say) in here somewhere. In the end it rates as just average.

Becky Something (Elisabeth Moss) is the lead singer of an once successful punk rock group. She struggles with drugs, drunkenness, instability, personal drama, and professional chaos. She's fighting with ex-husband Danny (Dan Stevens). Her mother Ania (Virginia Madsen) supports her through thick and thin. Ali van der Wolff (Gayle Rankin) and Marielle Hell (Agyness Deyn) are her long suffering bandmates. Their manager Howard Goodman (Eric Stoltz) is desperate to get her to finish her next album and recruits a new band called Akergirls. Its three members are Crassie Cassie (Cara Delevingne), Roxie Rotten (Ashley Benson), and Dottie O.Z. (Dylan Gelula).

It's an applaudable performance from Moss but the problem is that it gets rather monotonous. The constant chaos becomes the same thing over and over again until it stops being interesting. The shaman threatens to push it over into silliness. Like the band, she needs a bigger second to bounce off with narratively. Agyness Deyn is given a section which helps a lot but she may be better as the straight man lead. At one point, I assume that the movie is setting up Cara Delevingne as the second character but then she fades into the background. It's over two hours and much of it has Becky's chaos. It needs a second character to provide stable story telling.

This film is about a rocker who has no respect for anyone.

The rocker in question is a very obnoxious person. It is just not fun to watch her insult everyone and ruin people's lives around her for 90 minutes. The story is a mess, it is not engaging or interesting. There is little build up to the ending either, so there's nothing satisfactory resolution to the story.

I saw one Internet review of "Her Smell" that said the real movie begins at 1:20, and I found that to be absolutely correct. The question is whether or not you can make it that far without giving up on the repulsive mess that is this movie for the first hour and twenty minutes.

That's an awful long time to ask us to spend with a character as abhorrent as the one created by Elisabeth Moss, a troubled rock star who you want to see get run over by a truck within the first five minutes of the movie. Seriously, "troubled" does not even begin to describe the creation concocted by Moss and her director. She's pitched at such an insane level that you wonder how she manages to cross a street by herself, let alone function as the lead singer of a band. The film is one sustained note of frenzy that practically dares you to stick with it, as if it doesn't really want to be watched in the first place. I did stick with it because I was promised that it turned into something different, which it does. It's quieter, and there's more character development. There are moments in the latter half of the movie where I found myself moderately engaged. But overall the payoff was not worth the assault of the film's first half.

There is one moment in the film that made me unequivocally glad I stuck with it, and that is when Moss sings a sweet version of "Heaven" to her daughter while sitting at a piano. But it would be stretching it to say the film is worth sitting through for that. Just watch that scene on YouTube and forget the rest.

Grade: C-