Too Much (TV Program)

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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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      ‘Too Much,’ Plus 7 Things on TV this Week

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      Lena Dunham’s new rom-com comes to Netflix, and two reality shows air.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that are airing or streaming this week, July 7- 13. Details and times are subject to change.Fresh starts.For many millennial women, despite the fact that the finale of “Girls” aired in 2017, it’s never been too far out of the cultural zeitgeist. But now there will be fresh characters, plots and content to analyze with Lena Dunham’s new show, “Too Much.” The story follows Jessica (Megan Stalter), who, fresh off a breakup, moves to London for a new job and ends up falling for Felix (Will Sharpe), an indie musician who has seemingly countless red flags (I am having Adam flashbacks). The story is loosely based on Dunham’s real life — after working in Britain and meeting her now-husband, Luis Felber, there, she said she wanted to examine American expats’ fantasy of London versus the actual experience. All 10 episodes will be released at once. Streaming Thursday on Netflix.Kat Sadler, left, and Lizzie Davidson in “Such Brave Girls.”Courtesy of HuluThe real-life sisters Kat Sadler and Lizzie Davidson created a British sitcom in which they star as … sisters. The first season of “Such Brave Girls” tells the story of a mother, Deb (Louise Brealey), and her two daughters, Josie (Sadler) and Billie (Davidson), who navigate life after their father (Deb’s husband) leaves. In the second season, coming out this week, no topic is off limits — depression, medication, sex and affairs are all on the table. Streaming Monday on Hulu.Does he love me? Does he love me not?After a two-year hiatus, “Bachelor in Paradise” is back this week. The show features former contestants who head to a beach, this time in Costa Rica, for a second (or third, or fourth) chance at love. This season, the contestants from “The Golden Bachelor” franchise are also joining, but it’s unclear if there will be intergenerational dating. Jesse Palmer will serve as host, Wells Adams is returning as the bartender and for a new addition, the former “Bachelorette” Hannah Brown is taking on a role entitled “paradise relations,” in which she will help with rose ceremonies. Monday at 8 p.m. on ABC and streaming the next day on Hulu.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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      Will Sharpe, Star of Lena Dunham’s ‘Too Much,’ Is a Renaissance Man

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      When Will Sharpe arrived at Cambridge University in the mid-aughts, he was one of many undergraduates wanting to join Footlights, the storied sketch comedy troupe that had launched the careers of Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson. His friends thought it best to spend a few months figuring out what kind of comedy Footlights might favor before applying, but Sharpe wanted to jump right in.At a first-semester showcase open to nonmembers, Sharpe and his friends performed a wacky sketch that involved pretending to eat a tub of Vaseline by the handful. He was made a member and was later elected president of the troupe.Sharpe’s biweekly Footlights performances — which also included playing a white crayon that was sad it was never taken out of the box — “definitely encouraged a risk-taking attitude, because you could fail and try again, and fail and try again,” Sharpe recalled in an interview at a woodland cafe near his North London home.In the two decades since college, Sharpe, now 38, has tried — and often succeeded at — a variety of creative projects, including writing, directing, acting, playing music and performing comedy. Claire Foy, whom Sharpe directed in the 2021 biopic “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain,” described him in an interview with The New York Times as “a Renaissance man” — “a kind one.”American audiences, though, know Sharpe best from his chameleonic run of recent acting gigs: the stoic tech hunk in Season 2 of HBO’s “The White Lotus”; the earnest tour guide in Jesse Eisenberg’s Oscar-winning movie “A Real Pain”; and now, as Felix, the enigmatic indie musician in the rom-com “Too Much,” Lena Dunham’s new Netflix series arriving on July 10.Will Sharpe and Megan Stalter in “Too Much,” a new show by Lena Dunham for Netflix.NetflixWe 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 Meg Stalter Went From Social Media to a Leading TV Role

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      Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches […] More