Her Smell

First 1:20 of this movie is exhausting. Same thing over and over and over. Could have accomplished the point in about 30mins. Seems they wanted to say, "look at how well Moss plays her character" by using redundancy.

The real movie, and acting, starts after all this.

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.

This movie could be compelling if you could hear the dialogue. Not sure why the background sound is louder than the dialog, but it essentially makes it hard to follow. In one scene you hear the leaking water more than anything else. I wanted to like this movie more.

If they had begun with the back story, seeing how she WAS and how she devolved it would have been amazing. The point in this was how like so many before her, back to the late great Janis Joplin, the industry has a way of eating the talent.

Here is a girl with a dream, and family, friends, agents, all use her up. Use her until she loses her mind and destructs, and then they all say "see, told you she was messed up" Not accounting for how she got there in the first place.

It's an all to common tale on the self destruction. Of some of the greatest talents in history.

This is the judy garland of punk rock story, but you end up not caring because the director didn't bother to start with a story. Elizabeth moss is extraordinarily crazy and uncomfortably magnetic to watch. The rest is just plain sad.

As much I like Moss, I just did not believe her here; she came off as a spoiled, crazed child with no discernible talent, and I could not buy all the sweet, civilized, polite punk rockers in thrall.

I think the problem with this film is less with miscasting and more with the script, or lack thereof, as this could have been an incisive depiction of a musical genius, but instead is just a series of clips tied together without any real music, characters or plot.