Lena Dunham’s “Too Much” Is Exactly Enough

Is it too much to say that Too Much is a bit too much? It’s certainly the best way to describe Jess (Stalter), the show’s protagonist and, to some degree, Dunham’s stand-in. At the start, Jess has just gone through a rough breakup. Her boyfriend, who was once dreamily devoted to her, grew steadily colder and meaner until their relationship disintegrated. Now he’s dating a social media influencer named Wendy (Emily Ratajkowski), and she’s sharing their picture-perfect relationship all day every day online for Jess to watch. The series is narrated by way of a succession of enraged responses Jess records to Wendy’s posts that she buries on her private account. It’s a mildly funny joke that the show overcommits to in a way that doesn’t quite ever work.

Jess, you see, is “too much.” She overshares with new acquaintances, she smothers or shrieks at loved ones, she wears bunny ears to a work event, she does too much coke and ketamine, she dresses her hairless dog in “precious gowns,” she affects a bad British accent to British people, she speaks in what one character describes as “Tourette’s-style” fits and starts, she puts on a piece of sexy satin lingerie that for some reason has a hood. Back at home in the United States, she’s friendless. The only person she seems comfortable around is her older sister, played by Dunham. And it’s not any better in London. Her new colleagues appear ambivalent at best toward her. Most of the neighbors in her council estate categorically refuse to talk to her. We even see the exuberantly welcoming wife of her boss (Naomi Watts) send looks to her husband (Richard E. Grant), as if to say, What the hell is going on with this woman?

The only one who seems to appreciate her at all—outside of her hairless dog, whose mere image is a potent punch line in nearly all her scenes—is Felix (Will Sharpe) a moody, emotionally damaged singer-songwriter. The two fall in love essentially the first night they meet, and the series tracks the ups and downs of their condensed, not particularly novel courtship. Jess needs constant affirmation and reassurance; Felix is neither particularly affirming nor reassuring. A compulsive overreader of facial expressions and social cues, Jess is alternately flummoxed and turned on by Felix’s flatness and deadpan demeanor. “I’ve always found, like, engaging with people’s inner lives is kind of a waste of energy,” Jess’s co-worker tells Felix at a dinner party. “I can go deeper by staying on the surface.” Felix’s surfaces aren’t expressive enough, while Jess’s are arguably too expressive. One of the best scenes in the series occurs when Felix makes Jess a mix CD. The camera hovers above them as they lie on the bed, facing the ceiling. As Jess listens with headphones, her face silently cycles twitchily through a dozen aborted expressions: joy, gratitude, terror, excitement, uncertainty, love, even physical pain. It’s a symphony of discomfort that Dunham—who directs most of the show’s episodes—lets play out at length, uninterrupted.