Rachel Sennott's I Love LA Can't Decide If It's Spoofing Superficiality or Just Shallow

Influencer is a divisive word. Your gut reaction to it will probably be a good gauge of how you’ll feel about the new HBO series I Love LA, a hangout comedy created by and starring Shiva Baby breakout Rachel Sennott. For people under 30, who may not even remember a time when influencers were not ubiquitous, as well as all manner of marketers and salespeople, the term’s connotations tend to be neutral to positive. (Some studies have found that more than half of Gen Z aspires to influencerdom.) The older a person is, the more likely they are to find influencer culture faintly embarrassing, even if they do privately pore over tradwife content. Finally, there are the lucky few who’ve never had to learn what an influencer is. If that’s you, feel free to set aside this review and move on to more high-minded pursuits. The latest in a wave of shows by and about young adults (including FX’s Adults and Amazon’s Overcompensating) that is breaking a little over a decade after Girls touched off a monsoon of controversy about and among millennials, I Love LA understands the inherent hazards of chasing fame, success, and wealth for their own sakes. Sennott has a keen eye for the absurd workings of the influencer world, not to mention some great jokes about it. But her engagement with this new form of celebrity is so superficial for most of the 8-episode season that it’s hard to tell whether the show is meant as a commentary on shallowness or if it’s just shallow. Sennott’s mix of awkwardness, intensity, and smolder made her a revelation in Shiva Baby and another black comedy, Bottoms, and an almost-saving grace of HBO’s pop-star cult flop The Idol. She brings similar energy to the role of Maia, who aspires to a “big life” but has been languishing for years as an assistant at the confusingly named talent management firm Alyssa 180. We meet her on the morning of her 27th birthday, as she scrolls on her phone; has loud sex with her sweet teacher boyfriend, Dylan (Josh Hutcherson) during an earthquake; and then frets about her frequent UTIs from the toilet while he brushes his teeth. This is all very West Coast Lena Dunham. But despite its frankness, the show is more interested in ambition than in sexuality or gender relations.  Aside from Dylan, who seems to be the only grounded person in all of La La Land, Maia is surrounded by narcissistic clout chasers. Her employer, Alyssa, a sometimes-intriguing twist on the girlboss archetype played by a smartly cast Leighton Meester, claims to be her mentor but gets cagey about promotions. Maia’s flaky friends Alani (True Whitaker) and Charlie (Jordan Firstman) are, respectively, a nepo baby with a titular vice presidency at her famous father’s production company and a mouthy stylist genuflecting at the feet of small-time pop singers. The sudden arrival of Maia’s old best frenemy, Tallulah (Odessa A’zion), a rising New York influencer, presents both an opportunity and a threat. If Maia signs Tallulah to Alyssa 180, her boss will have to promote her to manager. But bubbly, unstrategic, free-spirited Tallulah also has a tendency to suck up all the oxygen in a city, relegating Maia to the role of sidekick. I Love LA chronicles our Type A hero’s efforts to mix business with friendship, pinning her dreams of industry domination on an It girl who might be a bit too authentic to be a good investment. Sennott and A’zion (the daughter of Better Things creator Pamela Adlon) are perfectly matched, the former all nervous energy while the latter glides on charm and impulse. Some character development does take place over the course of the season. Maia questions how cutthroat she really wants to be; Tallulah chafes at the distortion of her image. And the show can be uproarious when it’s spoofing the norms of its subculture, from at-home vitamin IVs to virtue-signaling snackfood brands to unironic rhapsodizing over an influencer-branded Chipotle bowl. Guest stars are deployed sparingly but well. It makes for a fun but mostly forgettable hang. I kept waiting in vain for hints that I Love LA possessed more insight than its characters. Sennott never steps outside the frame to ask what kind of person flocks to the influencer sphere and why, or whether any meaning can be found in such apparently soulless work. Maybe existential soul-searching is too much of a luxury for a generation that will likely have to fight harder than any other still living to survive. But why make art grounded in your own experience if you’re not prepared to do some introspection?