Her Smell

Starring: Elisabeth Moss, Cara Devingne, Dan Stevens, Agyness Deyn, Gayle Rankin, Ashley Benson, Dylan Gelola, Eka Darville, Eric Stoltz, Virginia Madsen, Amber Heard
Directed by: Alex Ross Perry
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Music
2019

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A famous punk rocker (Elisabeth Moss) struggles with inner demons as she tries to navigate fame and family.

Review:

Tim: It felt like I wanted to like Her Smell more than I could actually like it. The movie looked interesting- the talented Elisabeth Moss in a grungy, self-destructive punk rocker role. It looked to show the unglamorous side of a musician's life. Alex Ross Perry does do some interesting things with his film, but it's ultimately too flawed and not enjoyable enough of a film. I'm mostly glad I watched it, although it wasn't a very good movie.

I do have to give Moss a ton of credit. She's all in on this role and she embraces the boozy, self-centered singer who doesn't always have a firm grip on reality. It was a reminder that she's an incredibly talented actress. I can't fault her performance much. The issue is that her character is so unlikable and shows us the self-destructive side in ways that we've seen numerous times before. It didn't feel like this movie told us anything we haven't seen before. It felt similar to last year's Vox Lux (which was flawed but better than this movie) and even a little bit like the latest version of A Star is Born (which was way better). That's unfortunate, to get a movie that feels similar to two movies that came out last year, and that this movie feels like the inferior one. So, while Moss gives a strong performance, Perry's script and his depiction of this character didn't do her any favors.

The rest of the cast feels like they were shortchanged as well. I love Dan Stevens but he didn't get to do anything interesting here. Virginia Madsen feels underutilized as well. Cara Delevingne gets a few interesting moments, but not nearly enough. It was nice see Amber Heard, Ashley Benson, and Eva Darville, but their performances barely register. I will say that Eric Stoltz deserves a ton of credit. I thought Stoltz might have been the best part of the film. He doesn't get any favors from the script, but he manages to make a huge impression as the protagonist's manager. He manages to give a performance that felt authentic and he subtly works his way into your head. I found myself connecting with his character and caring about him, mostly as he suffered because of his star's bad behavior. It was really an excellent performance and an example of how an actor can take a role and elevate it beyond what was written on the page or in the director's end. Stoltz gets a bad rap for some of his poor movie decisions a decade or so ago, but he wowed me with his performance here.

This movie suffers greatly because it's arrogantly long. There's absolutely no reason for this movie to clock in at 2 hours and 14 minutes. Nothing here is even remotely close to being interesting enough to hold our attention for that long. Perry's direction is fairly bad, as he allows scenes to just meander on and on and on. There were multiple scenes in every phase of this film that needed to be trimmed down. He has a point to make, he makes it, and yet the scenes continues on for an aggravatingly long time. The whole first half of the movie is about what a disaster Moss' character is. It was clever to skip all the narrative about how she got to the point- it's rare to see a movie like this that picks up at rock bottom. Perry deserves some credit for starting his story in this unlikely place. Unfortunately, that approach didn't give us time to identify with or care about Becky Something. We don't see her fall from grace and lament the fall. We see her behaving terribly from the very beginning. That makes it hard to connect with her. We might want her to recover and see her rise from this bad spot, but there's less of a redemption arc that we might have expected. It's all fine- it's an interesting approach and I wasn't totally turned off by it. However, it leaves something on the table by approaching it this way. It limits the movie's effectiveness. Had Perry been a better director, he might have been able to turn it into something more. Perhaps he has a great movie in him- he did show some interesting glimpses here and there. However, despite some uniqueness to his writing and directing, I left this film with more questions than answers.

Her Smell isn't a bad movie. However, it seems like a film that wasn't close to realizing its full potential. Perry had a great lead, a strong supporting cast, and an intriguing subject matter. It feels like this film was less than the sum of its parts. I can't say I had a very fun time watching this movie and it's not an especially memorable movie. It kind of washes over you and too little of it actually sticks. I wanted to like this movie, but I couldn't (and by the way, the title is pretty bad).

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Vox Lux, A Star is Born (2018)