SXSW 2019 Review: HER SMELL: The Riot Grrrl Epic VOX LUX Wished it Was

Last year’s Vox Lux was one of the most disappointing experiences at the movies for me in recent memory. Between writer-director, Brady Corbet’s callous and lazy invocation of collective trauma, to his complete waste of a powerhouse like Natalie Portman, the glamorous, and ultimately meaningless journey left a sour taste in my mouth. But it also left me hungry.

The premise, a portrait of an aging pop star attempting to be a mother under the searing spotlight, while battling addiction and ego, felt urgent and alive. Portman seemed like the ideal candidate, an actor with undeniable chops who could be challenged by the role, but also find opportunities to put it in conversation with her previous work. I longed for a better director to soar where Corbet so miserably failed, and my prayers were answered in the form of Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell.

Since Vox Lux and Her Smell premiered less than a week apart, the former at Venice, the latter Toronto, I know it would have been impossible for Perry to use his sixth feature, and third collaboration with Elisabeth Moss, to respond to the failings of Vox Lux, but it might just as well.

In fact, the whole trip is a masterclass in pumping life back into dramas about musicians, whether they be fictional or real. Twelve years into living in a post-Walk Hard world, most directors still haven’t learned how to avoid the clichés that have plagued musician-centric dramas, resorting to a packaged and tired set of perspectives on creativity and responsibility. Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born, which full disclosure, was one of my favorite films of last year, did a much better job than most, but still shied away from digging in too deep to the two artists at its center.

Another Day, Another Bender

Her Smell doesn’t try to reinvent any wheels, but it does set itself apart by honing in on one aspect of a character, in a specific set of spaces. Becky Something’s (Moss) arc is fairly straightforward throughout the brisk five act structure. When the film opens, she and her band, Something She, a riot grrrl-style trio, consisting of Becky, Marielle (Agyness Deyn) and Ali (Gayle Rankin), perform a set to a raving crowd.

Everything seems peachy. They embrace each other before the show, they start partying after. The moment Becky gets on stage, someone screams: “WE LOVE YOU BECKY!” And she smiles widely and whispers into the mic: “I love you, too”. It feels like nothing can go wrong, but then everything does.

Perry’s script isn’t very plot driven, and that’s a good thing. Each act, instead, focuses on a defining moment in Becky’s journey from impaired rock bottomless, to redemptive sobriety. The fundamental story here, about a troubled musician putting themselves back together in order to be there for their loved ones, as well as themselves, is nothing new, but the execution is breathtaking.

We are stuck in one space in every act, the majority of which takes place in the green rooms of concert venues. The result is strikingly simple; each location becomes a claustrophobic pressure cooker. As characters pace frantically around the same hallways, or sit quietly in the same chair, for twenty minutes, the space gives life to their psychic pain, making us sharply attuned to their anxieties, fears, and egos.

Cinematographer Sean Price Williams (a frequent collaborator with Ross, as well as with the Safdie Bros.) is an element in his formula. In the first few acts, when Becky is still on a bender, Williams barely uses any wide shots, and the few times he does, it’s to frame her alone, in a studio surrounded by unmanned instruments as she strums quietly on a guitar, the rest of the band and her producer, Howard (Eric Stoltz), watching in horror as she spirals further downwards.

Otherwise, medium shots and close-ups are the game, putting us front and center to Becky’s breakdown(s), as well as to her loved ones as they attempt to process their situation. The camera, mercifully, widens during the fourth act, when Becky is recovering in her home, but is still kept strictly indoors, barely moving from her living room to her kitchen. It is in this peaceful, yet equally intense, segment that the film comes gloriously together, as we join Becky in sitting with the haze of events that has just transpired.

Slouching Towards Recovery

In a career that has rarely fallen short, it is safe to say that this is easily one of Moss’s best performances to date. She seamlessly transitions from borderline mania to quiet contemplation, giving Becky the exact energy she needs when the character demands it. Perry takes some risks with his often poetic, constantly lucid dialogue, and it could not have been pulled off without the sustained, and exhausting, force that Moss brings. The long and arduous transition from self-destructive addiction to unglamorous responsibility feels at once expertly paced and downright shocking.

The sharp contrast in tone and camera movement between some acts grounds the film in a believable arc of recovery. Sobriety is not easy. Neither is being a good, at least better, parent to a child one has neglected. Resisting the easy resolve that is so endemic of this genre, Perry opts instead to sit in the discomfort, to bask in it even.

One of the most horrifying sequences I’ve yet to experience this year involved Becky looking backstage for an old-time friend, Zelda (Amber Heard) and stumbling on a room full of alcohol and drugs in the process. This level of tension is only possible through the thorough investment in character and performance that Perry and Moss bring.

Centered as this film is on Becky, the rest of the ensemble do their part diligently in the story. Her Smell is as much about Becky’s actions as it is on her company’s reactions to them. Agyness Deyn, as Marielle, Becky’s closest friend, particularly shines, saying everything that needs to be said with her face before her words. Cara Delevingne, Ashley Benson, and Dylan Gelula are also superb as a young band who idolizes Something She, and Becky in particular.

Her fall from grace before their eyes is haunting, not just for our own investment in Becky, but for theirs as well. The first few acts lend credence to that adage about not meeting your heroes, but thank God Becky proves it wrong by the end.

Her Smell: Conclusion

Though it definitely feels like a good ten to fifteen minutes could’ve been shaved off, Her Smell never overstays its welcome, thanks to a stellar ensemble, Ross’s solid script, and Moss’s powerhouse performance. This won’t save the music drama, nothing will after Bohemian Rhapsody, but it does definitively prove that this genre is not without hope.

Quick, someone send a copy to Brady Corbet so he can learn how to make a movie about music and musicians.

What’s your favorite music drama?

Her Smell premiered at the 2018 Toronto Film Festival and screened at the 2019 South by Southwest Film Festival. It will be released in the US on April 12th.