Actually, I wanted to recommend several things again this time because there are such beautiful albums, films and series, but then this one series got into my way and I couldn’t think of anything else from pop culture for a week, so it gets monothematic again, but still huge, it’s about love.
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Just the damn love from which we still don’t become smart, and only in this way can it be that the series of the hour (grated one nose by promotion, algorithms and reviews) is already on the subject: “Too Much” on Netflix.
I also could not switch on either: a new series by the controversial author Lena Dunham (the Millennial feminism poster girl, which, like every feminism poster girl, has proven that feminism cannot be reached by poster), in the leading role the wonderful Megan Stalter (already in “hacks”), the history also inspired by a real love (Dunham wrote the series together with husband Luis Felber), of course you get curious, so you absolutely want to know: How do other people do that with love? Then of course the big question of whether and how fat is represented in this story (because representation is unfortunately still everything we get, we actually need: justice, but fair enough, that is not the task of pop culture) and last but not least the hope that this love story will finally come closer to what you have experienced with it yourself.
Spoiler: Yes! I find, I think closer to all the past hyped hetero-love eateries, such as “Fleabag”, “Normal People”, “Emily in Paris” or “Nobody Wants This”.
But what it is about: Jess was left by her boyfriend, now lives with her great, fun family and hates her job. She leaves New York and starts in London at the local branch of her advertising agency, but fortunately it’s not too much about the industry, which has really been seen too often. Instead, you can see above all how Jess flees and searches for pop cultural and literary clichés in England, cuddles with her naked dog, lets hate messages and self-reflections on her secret insta profile (she addresses her to the new of her ex, an influencer) and plunges into the nightlife right on the first evening. She ends up in a bar and gets to know Felix there (wants Sharpe), the two get on straight away. At first, they primarily share the humor, being alone and seem to find each other attractive. They go home together and then nothing runs smoothly and it stays for ten episodes.
The two mid-thirties, who first work like millennial series and film clichés- the undeveloped Indiem musician and the Quirky thickness with a broken heart- then surprise us as a viewer and each other. Both are tender and anxious, always appear almost teenagers, as is otherwise shown in Romcoms, they are not routinely routinely, they are not even safe, but taps as well as it feels like that: as if you are in love for the first time. As you know, one always notices that this is not, the painful things, the so -called luggage that you drag around with you, on the triggers, all sorts of social and intimate makeings, perhaps also in shame and guilt, because you have already injured yourself.
While the cliché figures are played again and again, Dunham and Felber seem to have deliberately undermined our visual habits – for example, the cool indie musician gets diarrhea before his appearance and the crying non -slanking single freau does not get red wine or chocolate bars in. Both are uncool and both show this from the beginning. They are open to their uncertainties, even if they have to find out a lot, too crass (too much). But you need time for that, and you have to give them to each other, instead of finding excuses for it why it can’t work. And this time the series gives the two.
To represent this tapy, very unstable literary phase (even if a lot is of course very great, but of course it is also a cultural product that should entertain us) “Too Much” really succeeded. It is not so cute and beautiful when it begins between two people, even if it is told so often (see “Honeymoon phase” and similar names). Isn’t the beginning of a love rather rather coarse and difficult, shaped by fear and strong physical reactions? Do you not have all of the stressful stress if you fall in love? If it doesn’t jerk superdoll, you don’t get bad and dizzy, do you really have as much energy as it is often called, or are you more likely to be overlooked? Do you really dance through the botany between fluttering veils or you tend to eat the pear? Pink glasses, who should be. And is the sex that you really have so super hot and passionate or do you not do what you think, what to do and find it good and is not mostly totally basic stuff and mechanical? Don’t you find out together over time, which is really good? I just ask questions.
In “Love Actually”, which is also ironically mentioned in “Too Much”, because of England and pop cultural romantic projections, there is this scene between Sam and his father Daniel, in which Sam tells him that he is in love. The father is then relieved, he says: “Well, i Mean, I’m a little relieved.” Sam then: “Why?” Daniel: “Because I thought it might be something.” And then Sam stops: “Worse Than The Total Agony of Being in Love?”
In “Too Much” the sweetest moments are the nightly conversations that open up, tell secrets and together for new concerns. These are the most intimate moments, the most important things that are going afterwards if you want to hold on to each other. Stupidly you often open each other, and that also takes place in “too much”, not too scarce to look at painful because you understand what the two do, but also know that it has to happen. They are unfair to each other, they hurt each other without wanting to, and as a viewer you will not be able to say in the end with many arguments who was actually right now. In every argument you argue again, you argue with your parents, ex -partners, the boss or with yourself, you react like a baby, sometimes totally cynical and clarified, you throw yourself down and build up, you imitated film scenes, you do and invent.
So why love each other with all the gossip? That tries to show “Too Much”. That it can go on after bad injuries that you can love new or continue to love. Both Jess and Felix have experienced broken trust and fill huge gaps, both are looking for an ally, both want to love, but do not consider themselves lovable. Like who knows to say it in millennial language. The series, I believe, makes it so spectacular that both, despite the fact that they are typical children of their generations, to mean everything ironically and consume each other, really want to love each other, really want to love each other and do not fall for the numerous excuses.
I was always irritated in previous series (à la “Sex and the City”, “Friends”, “How I Met Your Mother”, “Scrubs” and so on), how quickly people were dumped, which mini flict was enough to let the romance ended with a huge initial story. The diverge always went very quickly, the conflict had little consequences, you have ticked off each other as an anecdote, as a “Lesson”. Of course, comedy series work, but unfortunately you cannot say that this is not part of the dating culture, everyone is small anecdotes for each other, maybe one or the other is also publicly in your podcast or column, because if we can still capitalize each other, then it was not for nothing, what?
Where the story of Jess and Felix could become an anecdote or lesson, “Too Much” is in and again. For example, I find it very big (be careful, spoiler) that the two of course stay together after Felix cannot return Jess’s “I love you”. This moment is big, I think without being at least a break after something like that, I have never seen it before. You just know that Felix loves her, but that there is a story behind it, why he can’t say it. She also knows because she loves him, well, loves.
The message from “Too Much” is also not that love survives all adversities, that you have to put up with everything, that it is enough that you just have to want it. I’m not even sure whether the two stay together, but that’s not the point either. Love means wanting to open up, want to understand the other person, to look at each other benevolently, to do good. This feels very radical at a time when the vocabulary for romantic relationships only sounds after exclusion and counter -arguments: Red Flags, No Gos, Toxisch, The Ick, Lovebombing, … it has to give something between the and the terrible “Stand by your man” (no matter how violent and loveless your relationship is). There is a lot. There is too much.
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