Her Smell

(R)

Elisabeth Moss channels her inner riot grrrl.

Playing a ’90s rocker in full flameout, Elisabeth Moss “does something you almost never see,” said A.A. Dowd in AVClub.com. The Handmaid’s Tale star “sucks all the cool out of a downward spiral,” daring to make this film’s Courtney Love–like subject “not just unlikable but downright irritating.” As Moss’ Becky Something drags down her once celebrated band, she lashes out at everyone around her, and director Alex Ross Perry “locks the audience into the extended spectacle of Becky’s self-immolation.” Unfortunately, the film “takes itself very, very seriously,” said Mary Elizabeth Williams in Salon.com. Its five scenes stretch for 2 ½ hours, much of that a real-time dramatization of a breakdown we have no stake in. Becky is no musical genius, and Perry doesn’t seem to have decided whether she’s battling addiction or bipolar disorder. “Tellingly,” though, the most anxiety-inducing scenes come late in the film, “when Becky has clawed her way to sobriety,” said Emily Yoshida in NYMag.com. Though better days have finally arrived, “there’s suddenly far more to lose.” ■