Her Smell

In the past year alone the likes of A Star Is Born, Vox Lux and Wild Rose have all grap­pled with the sub­ject of young female musi­cians who strug­gle with the demons that come with suc­cess. This fas­ci­na­tion is long-stand­ing not only in Hol­ly­wood, but in pop cul­ture too, and so often it ends in tragedy. A year after its debut at the Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val, Alex Ross Perry’s man­ic por­trait of a girl on fire final­ly joins the ranks, and it’s one of the best depic­tions of free-falling cre­ative ener­gy in recent memory.

Elis­a­beth Moss, play­ing punk-rock whirl­wind Becky Some­thing, exudes a chaot­ic ener­gy that’s rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent from any of her pre­vi­ous roles. In the film’s open­ing act she per­forms The Only Ones’ ​‘Anoth­er Girl Anoth­er Plan­et’ before pin­balling around back­stage, talk­ing a mile a minute and lash­ing out at any­one who stands in the way of her and self-destruc­tion. Hav­ing suc­cess­ful­ly alien­at­ed her hus­band Dan­ny (Dan Stevens) and young daugh­ter, Becky’s reck­less nature under­mines her tal­ent and sees her at odds with her band­mates Marielle and Ali (Agy­ness Deyn and Gayle Rankin) while her man­ag­er Howard (Eric Stoltz) qui­et­ly despairs.

Between grot­ty back­stages and record­ing booths, to a self-imposed rur­al exile, Moss is unques­tion­ably the film’s heart and soul. In a just world, her per­for­mance would have received much more fan­fare when the film was released in the US ear­li­er this year. Becky is unre­li­able, unco­op­er­a­tive and often unsym­pa­thet­ic, flit­ting from blis­ter­ing highs to unbear­able lows on a moment’s notice, and Moss throws her­self into the role of des­per­ate, dif­fi­cult genius. Mileage may vary based on how odi­ous you find the dif­fi­cult lead­ing lady, but Moss’ per­for­mance is one of the most com­pelling of the year.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Agy­ness Deyn is remark­able as Marielle, Becky’s band­mate, some­time co-con­spir­a­tor, and some­time mor­tal ene­my. The chem­istry between the ensem­ble cast – which also fea­tures Cara Dele­vi­gne as a young punk pre­tender to the crown and Amber Heard as Becky’s fren­e­my, Zel­da Fitzger­ald – feels so nat­ur­al it’s easy to for­get it’s fic­tion and not a scuzzy, warts-and-all doc­u­men­tary, accen­tu­at­ed by video snap­shots of the band at the height of its star­dom, and full of the hope of spring.

So many films have told of destruc­tive male genius­es, and it’s refresh­ing to see a woman grant­ed the space to be more than a fig­ure of tragedy. An infi­nite­ly frus­trat­ing but unques­tion­ably com­pelling pres­ence, Becky is in con­trol of her own des­tiny and her own down­fall, and the film rejects all notions about the music indus­try being a place of unend­ing excess and glam­our. Instead, Her Smell con­fronts the lone­li­ness and com­plex­i­ty of fame with­out stray­ing into the ter­ri­to­ry of self-pity, less con­cerned with preach­ing and more with posterity.

It’s a cry­ing shame the film will only receive a VOD release in the UK, as it deserves to be watched in the lone­ly dark con­fines of a cin­e­ma, where Kee­gan DeWitt’s scratchy elec­tric score echoes in your ears and Sean Price Williams’ flu­id cam­er­a­work feels even more immer­sive. Ross Per­ry con­tin­ues to be a lead­ing light of indie film­mak­ing – so why is it so damn hard to see his movies?