Butler's Cinema Scene

Elisabeth Moss

“HER SMELL” My rating: B-

134 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Elisabeth Moss so desperately throws herself into every role that even in a mediocre movie she’s worth watching.

In “Her Smell,” writer/director Alex Ross Perry’s study of a female rock star in terrifying decline, that means spending 90 minutes watching Moss sneer, spit, snarl and growl her way into near-psychosis.  It’s almost too much.

Moss plays Becky Something, the singer-guitarist-songwriter of an all-female rock trio. The other members are bassist Marielle Hell (Agyness Deyn) and drummer Ali (Gayle Rankin), and we first find them on the stage of a mid-size auditorium wrapping up a guitar-screeching, throat-scraping set.

The setting is the pre-digital ’80s and the music, punkish hair and costuming suggest the early days of Seattle grunge…in fact, the film could very well have been inspired by Courtney Love and her all-woman band Live.

Once backstage Becky refuels  her performance high with booze and drugs and a fuck-you attitude.

She keeps on hand a couple of chanting shamans, latter-day hippies who serve as her spiritual advisers and have the unenviable task of keeping Becky grounded. Clearly they’re not very good at their job.

In this first segment — which like the other scenes plays out in real time — our heroine careens around like a ricocheting bullet.

She’s visited by her ex-husband Danny (Dan Stevens) who brings along their infant daughter so Becky can see the kid before leaving on a European tour. He seems like a decent guy, but Becky has nothing but contempt for him.

The band’s long-suffering manager, Howard (Eric Stoltz), reveals that he’s gone deep into hock underwriting Becky’s misadventures; before the evening is out he will announce that the European tour is off.

Throughout, Perry’s camera (the cinematographer is Sean Price Williams) takes a fly-on-the-wall, damn-near cinema verite approach, observing but not commenting.

Dan Stevens

The style of this opening segment is reflected in the half dozen that follow, each unfolding in real time in one location and most depicting Becky’s raging ego, mistreatment of others and physical deterioration.

At about the 90-minute point this viewer had just about had it…yeah, Moss is great, but there’s nothing redeeming about Becky and sticking with her through this downward spiral demands a level of compassion well beyond the average moviegoer.

Happily, just when you’re about to give up all hope, Perry throws a change-up.  We find Becky several years down the road living in her semi-remote house. She’s clean, having been through extensive rehab, though still emotionally and mentally fragile.  She is being visited by her daughter, now a six year old (Daisy Pugh-Weiss) and, in a moment of almost transcendental grace, entertains the little girl by sitting at her piano and singing Bryan Adams’ “Heaven.” Lovely.

She also meets with her former bassist, Marielle, who suggests burying the hatchet and putting the band together for a reunion concert.

The final segment finds everyone waiting in the wings for that concert to begin…the question is whether the fragile Becky is up to it.  She might just melt down at the last minute.

The scenes  are separated by old home videos of Becky and her buds as young rockers enjoying the first flush of success. Int these flashbacks they’re full of positive energy, eager ambition, playfulness and hope — providing a telling contrast to the chaos that reigns in their adult lives.

The self-destructive musician is a well-worn movie cliche, and Perry’s take really adds nothing new. The film is overlong and despite the craziness unfolding on screen often seems to be going nowhere.

But then there’s Moss, exhibiting the sort of commitment that makes it almost worthwhile.

| Robert W. Butler