If The Rose was Bette Midler performing an unofficial Janis Joplin biopic, Her Smell (2018) feels like a fictional take on Courtney Love and Hole. However, director-writer Alex Ross Perry has said his true inspiration for the character of Becky Something (Elisabeth Moss) and her rock band Something She, which is set in the 1990s alternative music era, was Axl Rose. In any case, the movie has all the rock ‘n’ roll cliches – drugs, booze, backstage freak outs, band arguments, onstage meltdowns, AA, a shot at redemption – but it’s more the way they are presented that had impact on me. Her Smell (terrible title, by the way) is broken up into five acts that move along in time to chart Becky Something’s descent, long sequences that play out like real time, cameras following the action, pushing in for close ups, etc. The strength of the movie is in its visual style (as well as its sound design, often resembling the feeling of being in a submarine with the chaos that swirls around Becky) and Elisabeth Moss’ fearless performance, who really goes for it in depicting this self destructive life of the party. She’s great and there’s good support from Gayle Rankin and Agyness Dean as her bandmates, Dan Stevens as her ex, and Eric Stoltz as their manager (Eric Stoltz, where have you been, man?). There’s also a Shakespearean tone to the dialogue and dramaturgy, which adds to the heightened style. Any serious movie about a fictional band always feels a bit naff here or there, and it does over reach in its depiction of excess by being a bit too long (and people might grow tired of Becky’s terrible behaviour for the first two-thirds), but overall, I thought it was good, mainly for the look of the film, the clear narrative arc, and the central performance by Moss (her piano performance of a Bryan Adams number is a tear jerker). Recommended. Streaming on Amazon Prime and Kanopy.
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