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    Review: ‘Too Much’ Is Not Nervy Enough

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    This new Netflix comedy by Lena Dunham is the surprisingly mild tale of a young woman fleeing New York after a catastrophic breakup.In a scene from the new Netflix comedy “Too Much,” Jessica (Megan Stalter), a frustrated line producer, vents to her colleagues about her resentments. A co-worker snips: “You’re realizing that middling white women feel terrible wherever they go.” Well, with frenemies like this …Created by Lena Dunham and her husband, Luis Felber, a British musician, “Too Much” follows our heroine Jessica as she flees New York after a catastrophic breakup. She moves to London for the romance of it all — the Jane Austen, the Bridget Jones, the BritBox. The distance from her grandmother (Rhea Perlman), mother (Rita Wilson) and sister (Dunham) is a perk, too, though oceans and time zones are no match for matriarchs who want to impart wisdom on vaginal health.Jessica is a pajama girlie, seen often in granny nighties, frilly tap shorts and teddies. By day, she wears baby-doll dresses and voluminous sailor-neck shifts, big bows in her hair, space buns and a pale blue manicure. She puts her gremlin dog in sweaters and gowns, and she stomps her feet when she’s angry.She also can’t stop looking at her ex’s new girlfriend’s social media. How can the knitting influencer and lizard rescuer Wendy (Emily Ratajkowski) be so happy with Zev (Michael Zegen), when she, Jessica, was supposed to be celebrating her seventh anniversary with him at this very moment? Jessica scrolls obsessively, and she records her own private video diaries addressed to Wendy, videos that bubble with post-breakup rage and confusion.But maybe all that insecurity and despair is more of the New York Jessica, because the London Jessica meets a brooding singer-songwriter, Felix (Will Sharpe), on her very first night in town. They hit it off immediately and speed-run the traditional relationship markers: the I-love-yous, the dinner with the boss, the awkward introduction to friends, the strained plus-one-at-the-wedding mishegoss, the disclosure of family baggage.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      These Americans Went Looking the Britain Found Onscreen. They Found a Different Story.

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      Like the lead character of “Too Much,” they moved across the Atlantic with visions of Jane Austen and Merchant Ivory. The reality was a little less dreamy.In the first episode of “Too Much,” Lena Dunham’s loosely autobiographical new series that premieres on Netflix this Thursday, Jessica (played by Megan Stalter) arrives in London from Great Neck, N.Y. She is subletting a flat in the fictional Hoxton Grove Estate, and expects to find verdant grounds surrounding a stately building, like something one might find in a Merchant Ivory production.“Good luck with that, love,” the cabdriver laughs as he drops her outside an apartment block with peeling paint. After all, the Britain we see onscreen — in period dramas or in modern Richard Curtis romantic comedies like “Notting Hill” — tends to emphasize a certain aspirational loveliness. It also tends to gloss over details — like the fact that “estate” can refer to both sprawling mansions and public housing.This well-established idealization means that when Jessica first meets Felix (Will Sharpe), an indie musician inspired by Ms. Dunham’s real-life indie musician husband, Luis Felber, he quickly hypothesizes her reasons for being in London: “Let me guess, you’re one of those ‘Love Actually’-loving girls?” he asks with a grin. “You’re on a pilgrimage?”Characters like William in “Notting Hill” (far left) and Mr. Darcy in “Pride and Prejudice” contribute to some Americans’ fantasies of British life, like Jessica’s in “Too Much.”From left; Alamy; Netflix; BBCWhile the British pilgrims fled to America’s shores about 400 years ago, Ms. Dunham, who moved to London in 2021, is one of the many Americans making the reverse journey today, seeking refuge in the coziness they have seen depicted onscreen or on the page. But as these Americans adjust to regional accents and codes of conduct, many are surprised by what they find. “It didn’t take long for me to understand some of the decay underneath the facade,” Ms. Dunham said in an email.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How the Women of ‘Too Much’ Made Lena Dunham’s Rom-Com Just Right

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      When Lena Dunham moved to London in 2021, she had given up on love. “The rest of my life is just going to be about my family and my animals and my job,” she remembered telling herself.If you have seen Dunham’s previous work, which often skews anti-romantic, this will make a special kind of sense. In the six-season HBO series “Girls,” a generation-defining traumedy, Dunham, a writer, director and occasional actor, viewed love with a conjunctival eye — itchy, gritty, irritated.But love had not given up on Dunham. Just after her move, she met the musician Luis Felber. She didn’t anticipate anything serious. “I was seeing it as fleeting — it’s fun to hang out with a boy during the pandemic,” Dunham said on a stupidly beautiful June morning in New York. She was wrong. By the fall of that year, they were married.Soon, there were reports that Dunham and Felber were developing a show based on their relationship. That 10-episode show, “Too Much,” arrives on Netflix on July 10.“Too Much,” with Will Sharpe and Megan Stalter, was inspired by Lena Dunham’s own story of meeting her husband, Luis Felber.NetflixIs “Too Much” a romantic comedy? Yes. Is it inspired by Lena’s own story? Sure. But “Too Much” wants more — inclusivity, expansiveness, a reconsideration of the love stories we tell and about whom we tell them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pedro Almodóvar, Sofia Coppola and 117 Other Famous Names Share Their Top Movies of the Century.

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      <!–> [!–> <!–> –><!–> –>and 73 more ballots from the over 500 voters who determined our list of the century’s best movies<!–> –> 100 Best Movies And more ballots from … actors  Naomi Ackie, Uzo Aduba, Casey Affleck, Joel Kim Booster, Daniel Brühl, Jemaine Clement, Richard Gadd, Tony Hale, William Jackson Harper, Naomie Harris, Sally […] More

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      ‘Treasure’ Review: Unearthing the Past

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      Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry star in a Holocaust-memory drama that uneasily doubles as a father-daughter road movie.Along with Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain,” scheduled for release this fall, Julia von Heinz’s “Treasure” is one of at least two dramas this year to follow the American descendants of Holocaust survivors on travels across Poland. Von Heinz’s film is based on a novel by the Australia-raised author Lily Brett, herself the daughter of survivors. But whatever complexities might come across in the book don’t register in a film that has been fashioned, sometimes uneasily, into a sentimental father-daughter road movie.It is 1991, and Ruth (Lena Dunham, asked to do the most serious acting of her career), a journalist, has planned a trip to Poland. Her father, Edek (Stephen Fry), who, along with Ruth’s mother, survived Auschwitz, has insisted on joining her. He says he couldn’t let his daughter visit Poland alone.Initially, “Treasure” presents Edek as a goofy lug, jocular and uninhibited. But his carefree attitude masks repressed trauma, to an extent that Fry never manages to make visceral. Unnerved by train travel, Edek hires a driver (Zbigniew Zamachowski, from Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “White”) to take them from site to site. “Treasure” builds to their trip to Auschwitz, where Edek quickly takes over from the tour guide with an outpouring of memories.The crux of the film involves their visits to the Lodz apartment from which Edek and his family were exiled in 1940. Ruth wants to reclaim what was stolen from her family; Edek has a learned fear of not moving on from the past. Their difference in outlooks is a potentially powerful subject, but miscasting has blunted its impact.TreasureRated R. Intense descriptions of survival in Auschwitz. Running time: 1 hour 52 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Laurie Simmons and Lena Dunham Argue About Earrings, Not Art

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      Laurie Simmons: My father was a first-generation American small-town dentist on Long Island with an office off our kitchen and a darkroom in the basement; I’d sit at his feet as he developed his dental X-rays. I see his work ethic in you — you’re relentless in your desire to keep making things — but I’d like to think that came from me, too.Lena Dunham: Well, it did. I’ve seen you go into your studio and come out 12 hours later in the same outfit looking confused, like you don’t know when you went in. Growing up, I spent a lot of time in that space. My favorite thing to do was to look through the loupe at slides on the light box. And then you’d take the red pen and X out the ones that weren’t good.L.S.: I can’t believe you remember that.culture banner More

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      ‘Catherine Called Birdy’ Review: Ye Olde Lady Bird

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      Bella Ramsey plays a 13th century adolescent in Lena Dunham’s winning film.To flip through the pages of a 13th century manuscript, one might believe the medieval era was beleaguered by more snaky dragons and man-murdering bunnies than temperamental tween girls. Young women’s stories weren’t recorded — certainly not in their own hand, as literacy was low and paper costs were high — an absence that has prodded later generations to imagine the adolescent of the Middle Ages as demure and obedient, neither seen nor heard. Here comes “Catherine Called Birdy,” a headstrong comedy written for the screen and directed by Lena Dunham, to fill in that silence with a shriek.Birdy, played with zest by Bella Ramsey, storms into the frame baring her teeth and flinging mud pies. The 14-year-old daughter of a broke lord (Andrew Scott) and his oft-bedridden wife (Billie Piper), Birdy is mercurial, mulish and emphatically irritated by nearly everyone and everything in her shire. She logs her grievances in her diary, which riffs from Karen Kushman’s 1994 Newbery Medal-winning children’s novel. The film drops Kushman’s unromantic runner about pestilence (“Picked off 29 fleas today,” her Birdy writes) to focus on the girl’s passion for inventing curses (“Corpus bones!”) and her campaign to scuttle her father’s intention to save his estate by marrying his only surviving daughter to a flatulent creep she dubs Shaggy Beard (Paul Kaye).Husbands, as seen here, are either too old (81!), too young (9!) or too selfish, in the case of Scott’s repugnantly weak Lord Rollo, who wasted the family money importing tigers and silken robes he wears open-chested with beads, as if presaging Lord Byron’s fashion sense six centuries sooner. No wonder the girl would prefer to suffer a saint’s gruesome tortures than live on as one more forsaken wife.Dunham sets out to make life in 1290 feel as vibrant as if Birdy was rocking the glitter eye shadow of “Euphoria” instead of drawstring underpants. Occasionally, the movie overplays its bid for modern relevance — it’s dubious that a medieval teen would be able to come out as gay with just a knowing look — and the soundtrack’s twee covers of girl power anthems are a warble too far. (No need to perform Elastica’s “Connection” on what sounds like a lute.) But Dunham prevails in convincing audiences that coming-of-age in a so-called simpler time was equally tumultuous, and crams the corners of her movie with images of other female characters discreetly seizing their own moments of satisfaction — glimpses of joys which realize that it’s in the margins of a medieval tale where the best stuff happens.Catherine Called BirdyRated PG-13 for adult innuendo. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Sharp Stick’ Review: The Babysitter’s Schlubs

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      Lena Dunham’s new movie follows a 26-year-old who methodically gains sexual experience after having an uncomfortable affair.Sarah Jo (Kristine Froseth), the mythical seductress at the center of “Sharp Stick,” an uneven, uneasy fable of desire by the writer, director and performer Lena Dunham, is the kind of erotic nymph who exists only in Penthouse letters and vintage soft-core movies. A babysitter long of hair and limb but short on emotional demands, Sarah Jo ventures through modern day Los Angeles in modest floral pinafores, which she lifts above her waist in invitation. No need for conversation or dinner — she only appears to eat plain yogurt, anyway.The strong first half of “Sharp Stick” places Sarah Jo in competition with Heather (played by Dunham), a harried, heavily pregnant real estate agent. Heather relies on Sarah Jo’s expertise to look after her son, Zach (Liam Michel Saux), who has Down syndrome. But Zach’s slacker father, Josh (Jon Bernthal), is usually floating around the house, too, and the ne’er-do-well suffers only a twinge of guilt as he seizes the chance to recast himself as a romantic hero to Sarah Jo. It’s not much of a fight — and Josh isn’t much of a catch — but one of Dunham’s talents is her ability to capture the allure of heartbreakers, scuzzballs and dopes. At home, Sarah Jo’s mother, Marilyn (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a former music video starlet who has torn through five marriages, and older sister, Treina (Taylour Paige), a boy-crazy aspiring influencer, chatter constantly (and hilariously) about girth size and titillation tips. Steeped in their dubious advice, Sarah Jo, a 26-year-old virgin at the start of the film, sets out to gain her own life experience with men. Aside from Josh, she doesn’t seem to know any — her father, whom Marilyn dismisses as a dumbbell, isn’t around — and she quickly discovers that she has a lot to learn, including that the names of certain sex acts aren’t literal. The impossibility of these two tigresses raising this lamb is Dunham’s clue that she’s operating in allegory: This film is her test to see whether the world is any kinder to a hetero male fantasy like Sarah Jo than it is to the kind of messy, cranky, needy women that Dunham has made her career putting onscreen.Sarah Jo’s early affair with Josh leads to a garbled, meandering stretch where she works her way through an alphabetical checklist of carnal escapades with a revolving door of men. As Froseth bravely flings herself into vulnerable scenarios, the film is careful to keep the focus on her character’s pleasure (or the lack of it). A montage of flings is shot with all the sizzle of a Slurpee commercial. These scenes are too humorless for satire and too artificial to support the film’s eventual, deluded attempt to shift into a somewhat sincere coming-of-age tale. (The gentle pop soundtrack and Ashley Connor’s naturalistic cinematography seem to think that this has been that kind of movie from the beginning.) By that point, the naif’s misadventures simply feel like an argument to not take sex so seriously. Watching Sarah Jo’s repeated hallucinations of a cartoon woman mating and giving birth, one can imagine Dunham whispering to the audience that moments of awkward, sloppy intimacy aren’t shameful — they’re the foundation of human existence.Sharp StickRated R for sexual situations, including one under the influence of psychedelics. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Who Is Luis Felber? An Interview With Lena Dunham's Husband

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      Luis Felber and Lena Dunham are in love. The pair has made no secret of this fact on their Instagram accounts in recent months. And now they are married.Asked when he knew he wanted to marry Ms. Dunham, Mr. Felber responded on Monday via email: “There were lots of moments, there are lots of moments and there will be lots of moments. I’m not living in a Disney film where you’re certain about who you want to spend the rest of your life with in one moment. Time is fluid and when you know, you know. I love my wife, who is also my best friend.”So who is Luis Felber?Born in Winchester, England, to a Peruvian mother and a British father, Mr. Felber spent his earliest years in Peru and Chile before moving back to Britain at age 7. At 17, he skipped university and began pursuing a career in music, playing guitar with several different bands.Recently, Mr. Felber, 35, has been recording and performing under the name Attawalpa (his middle name, after the 16th-century Incan ruler Atahualpa). On Oct. 13, he’ll release a new single, “Peter Gabriel’s Dream.”Below is an interview, edited for clarity, conducted with Mr. Felber over Zoom in early September.So how did you and Lena meet?It was a blind date. A mutual friend of ours basically set us up. The first time we hung out, we didn’t stop talking for, like, eight hours.Where did you go?Just around central London because everything was shut down.So you’re walking along the streets, along the Thames?Yeah and I think it was sort of incredible, you know, I walked into that. I’d been on quite a few dates in the past year. As someone who’s quite open, I find you hold a lot back on your first three dates. Or first 10 dates. I was just a bit fed up with that, so I just walked into the situation very myself, shall I say. And Lena liked that. And she’s the same.“I’m still getting used to being shown that sort of love by someone else,” Mr. Felber said of his relationship with Ms. Dunham.Charlotte Hadden for The New York TimesIs it fair to say that your relationship seemed to get really intense really quickly? Or is that just our impression via Instagram?Yeah, I mean, describe “intense.”It feels like you’re both very passionate about each other, that you’re both very much in love, and that it happened very quickly.I think when you know, you know. I’ve only been alive for 35 years in this lifetime, and I think it’s another archaic thing for guys to hide their feelings. I’m way more into the flow of getting to know the person. And I think Lena’s the same, and I think — I’m going to sound cheesy — but when you find your soul mate, you just know.She’s very open about you on Instagram. How does that make you feel?It’s very moving. I’m still getting used to being shown that sort of love by someone else. I’ve never shut her down, or anyone down for that. It’s beautiful that she expresses herself and I love being on the other end of it.How do you like living together?It’s great, we’ve been living together for about four months now. We both work a lot, and every morning is a blessing. And every evening, to be able to go to bed with your best friend and chat — we find it hard to go to sleep at a decent hour. It’s rarely eight hours.What kind of dates do you go on now?Oh my. She comes to my gigs. Neither of us really drink, but we go for long walks on the Heath, we see friends, we watch movies, we just watched the whole of “BoJack Horseman.” I could be sitting at a bus stop with her for 10 hours and it would be the best day ever.How do your parents like Lena?They love her. My mum’s very shy, and she kind of builds barriers. It’s a protection thing, I think from leaving a country when you’re very young, not knowing the language. I think maybe it’s a barrier she’s had from childhood. I can kind of relate to that. But with Lena she was just, like, best friends. She was very open about her emotions and they just love each other. My dad as well.That’s the thing: Both me and Lena’s parents are still together, and I think that’s a great example.Lena’s parents are artists: Her mother is the photographer Laurie Simmons and her father is the painter Carroll Dunham. Your mother is the painter Alma Laura. Would you say you and Lena are similar?I think we’ve got the same references. We were born in the same year, under a month apart, I think we have the same sense of humor. I don’t know if we’re similar. Lena would be able to answer that more.Do you have any of your mother’s work in your home?We’ve got a few paintings of hers. They make me feel really calm.A portrait of Mr. Felber and Ms. Dunham hangs in the couple’s home. It was painted by Mr. Felber’s mother, Alma Laura. “They make me feel really calm,” he said of his mother’s paintings.Charlotte Hadden for The New York TimesLena directed the video for your song “Tucked In Tight,” a love song about your phone. What was it like working with her?It’s the best — I love being directed by her. It’s like our relationship, it just sort of flows. We don’t have any arguments. She’s obviously very good at what she does.Had you heard of Lena before you started dating or had you seen her work?No. Mum was a fan of “Girls.” I remember when I was touring in my 20s, my mum and my sister were watching that show. But I never watched it.Have you seen it now?I haven’t. But I’ve watched her current stuff. I watched “Industry” when we first started dating, and I scored her next film, “Sharp Stick,” which is out next year. It’s a really beautiful film.When you’re an artist, you’re living in the present, into the future. You’re looking for the next thing. Looking back is a thing we shouldn’t really do too much, to be able to move forward with ease.But I will watch “Girls” one day, to answer your question. I can see what an impact it’s had on people. I was at lunch with some old school friends and my friend’s sister was really excited about Lena. I asked, “What did ‘Girls’ make you feel?” She said, “I feel like it gave me a voice,” and that’s amazing. What a beautiful thing to hear about your partner.How would you describe your musical style to someone who hasn’t heard it before?If I’m feeling lazy, I say “alternative.” If I’m feeling cocky, I’ll say it’s between Prince and Nirvana.You’ve worked as a musician for much of your adult life. How did the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle suit you?I basically toured a lot in my 20s, playing guitar for different bands. When you’re on tour, you are basically given whatever you want. Alcohol and weed were my main methods of numbing. In the U.K., alcohol is considered a normal thing to do on the weekends. But if your job entails playing every night, you are given alcohol every night. It’s almost like part of your job.I wouldn’t say I’m sober, but I haven’t had a drink since November. I just drink when I feel like it. I call it “conscious drinking.” I never did A.A., but I started therapy in 2017. Therapists would be like, you need to stop drinking so you can hear your thoughts, and I’d be like, no. That went on for about six months. And then I did a session of five-element acupuncture, and I stopped drinking for about a year.It’s kind of romanticized, isn’t it — musicians and alcohol.Yeah, in my opinion, I think that’s a way of controlling musicians. Most musicians aren’t in charge of their business, aren’t in charge of their money or even the way they look or the way they’re perceived. So it’s just really easy to fall into that trap and be numb to everything and expect your manager to deal with things.For me, the most punk rock thing is to be conscious. Since I’ve been conscious, I’ve managed to put out loads of music and be more open to who I am. More