Copyright The Hollywood Reporter
The classic stereotype of the citizens of Los Angeles is that that we’re all fake. That the people here are all flash and no substance, all smiles and no sincerity, as photogenic as the Pacific at sunset and as shallow as the Los Angeles River during one of our somehow constant historic droughts. This is not true, obviously, any more than it is that all New Yorkers are rude or all Austinites are weird; actually speak to a local, and you’ll find our inner lives and loves are as rich as anyone else’s. Still, the reputation endures, at least in the public imagination — and it’s not likely to be upended much by star and creator Rachel Sennott’s I Love LA. Much like the archetypal Angeleno, the HBO comedy bursts out the gate with the look-at-me dazzle of a star in waiting; much like an actual Angeleno, it’s got surprising depths waiting to be discovered. It’s just that to get there, you have to sit through a string of fitfully charming, frequently exhausting misadventures first. The title is semi-ironic. Despite the conspicuous placement of merch from Dan Tana’s and Bob Baker Marionette Theatre, namedrops of Erewhon and Courage Bagels and a cute modern recreation of Randy Newman’s “I Love LA” music video in the Lorene Scafaria-directed premiere, its perspective is that of a New York City transplant trying and failing to convince herself she does love Los Angeles, when really she finds the town “isolating” and hates having to drive everywhere. This would be Maia (Sennott), a 27-year-old who lives on the east side with her cute schoolteacher boyfriend, Dylan (Josh Hutcherson), and works as an assistant to Alyssa (Leighton Meester as the quintessential millennial girlboss), a talent manager. Maia is content with her life, mostly, except whenever the Instagram algorithm reminds her how much better her influencer ex-bestie, Tallulah (Odessa A’zion), is doing on the other side of the country. But when Tallulah decides she, too, wants to start fresh in Cali, Maia jumps at the chance to snap her up as a client, repairing their friendship and boosting her career in one fell swoop. Maia and Tallulah’s professional relationship comprises the narrative spine of the season’s eight half-hours, but I Love LA is mostly a quarterlife hangout sitcom in the warts-and-all Girls mold — and as with this year’s other spiritual successor, FX’s Adults, the comparison is not entirely flattering. Sennott’s work in films like Shiva Baby, Bodies Bodies Bodies and Bottoms (the last of which she co-wrote) suggests she doesn’t mind going darkly, even meanly, funny in exploring the bonds between young women. But I Love LA pulls its punches, ending up with an ensemble that’s too annoying to love but not sharp enough to enjoy hating. Aside from Maia, who gets the season’s only truly satisfying arc, the characters are instantly familiar in that they’re excellent renderings of types of people you’ve probably encountered before, but mostly don’t get much more unique than that. Tallulah is the influencer you follow not because she seems relatable or talented but because she’s so entertainingly chaotic. Alani (True Whitaker) is the sweet-natured ditz who’s never grown out of the charmed bubble literally afforded by her Oscar-winning dad; even her memories of dating a married man as an eighth grader are relayed with an obliviously nostalgic sigh. Charlie is a stylist who bristles when he’s described by a client as having only “a brain for clothes and, like, being gay” — but for most of the season that does seem to sum up his whole deal, although actor Jordan Firstman’s quietly hilarious reaction shots add some fun shading in the margins. And Hutcherson’s charmingly low-key Dylan serves as a foil to the others, a reminder that even in LA some young adults prefer curling up with a Ken Burns documentary to partying with celebs. Particularly in early episodes, I Love LA’s tone wavers uncertainly between snarky and earnest, making it difficult to tell at times whether any of these people are meant to like each other, much less whether it expects us to like them. Likewise, though its reflections on the hustle culture specific to 20somethings chasing internet clout are amusing — in one of the series’ funniest episodes, the gang attends an influencer party where one TikTok star casually explains that she had a dentist pre-chip her tooth so she could “accidentally” injure it on camera — its targets are too broad and too obvious to draw blood. But it starts to find its footing in the second half of the season, as the easy jokes about LA traffic and meaningless public apology posts give way to slightly deeper, more complex emotions. Maia’s work with Tallulah stokes her sense of ambition, forcing her to consider increasingly difficult decisions — between the quiet contentment she’s found with Dylan and the “big life” she dreams of with Tallulah, between the careful career path modeled by Alyssa and the more ruthless approach represented by an old boss, Ben (Colin Woodell). It’s in these later chapters that Sennott’s gifts as a performer truly shine through, allowing her to move through a subtle and ever-changing mix of unease, desire, excitement and devastation. In Maia’s indecision, I Love LA captures something of the shift that so many people find themselves in at exactly that age, still coasting on the limitless potential of youth but increasingly aware that they won’t be able to forever. “If you stop for a second you will fucking disappear,” an influencer (played by real-life influencer Quenlin Blackwell) says of building a career on the internet, and though she’s directing her warning at Tallulah, it’s Maia who seems to live those words every minute of every day. The jobs might change from generation to generation, along with our ideas of what fame looks like or what the cool kids should be wearing or what the best way is to come back from a public scandal. But the anxiety of those on the climb remains a constant. Once it taps into that, I Love LA finds itself, at long last, somewhere real.
