Lena Dunham's Bittersweet Revenge
The "Too Much" scribe dramatizes her breakup with Jack Antonoff. Plus: Another Rom-Com Report.
Lena Dunham is in her revenge era.
I zipped through all 10 episodes of Too Much, Dunham’s kinetic Netflix series about a young woman processing a traumatic breakup while sparking a romance with someone new. The opening sequence is Fatal Attraction-meets-Millennial Cringe: thrilling, disturbing and funny all at once. In the middle of the night, a drunken Jessica (the radiant Meg Stalter) uses a garden gnome to smash a window and break into the Brooklyn apartment that she once shared with her ex-boyfriend, Zev (Michael Zegen). She finds him asleep next to his current flame, the effortlessly cool influencer Wendy Jones (Emily Ratajkowski).
“And there you were, Wendy Jones, Brooklyn was yours now,” Jessica seethes in a voice-over. “And so was the love of my life.”
When the couple wake up, they have very different reactions. Wendy offers Jessica a Xanax and suggests they “work” it out, while Zev panics and jumps out of bed.
“Yeah, we can work it out, sure,” Jessica responds. “Let’s just all sit down with a cup of tea and work it out.” Furious, she turns to her ex and wails, “And you, Zev Jeremiah Goldstein, need to sit down and write on a piece of paper that LEAVING ME IS THE WORST THING THAT ANYONE’S EVER DONE!!!”
Jessica sprints out of the apartment, gnome in hand, and curses Wendy for ruining her life. At rock bottom, she leaves New York City and moves to London, where she encounters culture shock, quirky Richard Curtis characters and handsome indie musician Felix (Will Sharpe), who is gentle, tolerant and quietly battling personal demons of his own. I was on tenterhooks watching Jessica and Felix’s relationship play out, hitting bumps along the way, not-knowing how things would end between them.
Most romantic comedies are predictable. We know right off the jump that the meet-cute will turn into Happy Ever After. It’s a familiar, cozy formula. But since Too Much is a Lena Dunham production, the journey toward marriage is anything but conventional. The writer-director takes viewers on a wild ride filled with chaos, obsession and unresolved anger toward Zev and Wendy. Jessica stalks Wendy’s social media and disappears during a posh wedding in the English countryside to have a hallucinated rendezvous with Zev. Dunham also provides flashbacks of Jessica, a burned-out commercial producer, and Zev, a struggling music journalist, and their fraught dynamic. Episode by episode, Zev’s charm and sweetness dissolves into casual cruelty as his attention shifts to Wendy, who lives across the street. (Quelle nightmare!)
While watching the drama unfold, I thought of Dunham and Jack Antonoff, perhaps too much. Dunham began dating the musician and record producer in 2012, shortly after her HBO show Girls debuted and brought her instant notoriety. Everyone seemed to have a strong opinion on Dunham, her aimless alter ego Hannah Horvath, and her fearless exhibitionism. According to a 2014 profile of Antonoff in New York, “Dunham has said that she remembers Antonoff telling her that he thought all the articles about nudity on her show were ‘bullshit.’ And that he still talks her through it whenever she gets upset about something she reads about herself.”
More from that profile by journalist Jada Yuan:
Both Antonoff and Dunham are productive creative people who’ve suffered from hypochondria and anxiety, and neither likes to party much. “We’re a good match in that department,” he says, telling the story of how they went to a spa retreat the weekend before his 30th birthday in April where they were the only people even remotely in their own age group. “Everyone else was 56 and, like, either coming off a divorce or trying to dry out. We were like, This is great! We love being here!” He has another one. “Here’s a perfect story for what we’re like: One time we were at a dinner party where everyone was over 60 and, before we knew it, we realized that everyone at the table had gone outside to smoke pot and they didn’t invite us. That basically says it all.”
In the two years since Antonoff and Dunham got together, both of them have gone from being relative unknowns to fairly famous. They just moved into a new apartment they bought together, and he’s become father to her rescue dog, Lamby, of whom they post so many photos on Instagram the pet gets recognized on the street with them. They are the most personable and accessible of all celebrity couples, opening a wide window onto their lives, filled with unflattering photos of each other sleeping or having just woken up — two very culturally relevant representatives of a generation that’s naturally inclined toward sharing, or oversharing.
One time, Antonoff posted a video of Dunham waving her ring finger and joking, “I’m waiting! Hello!” That clip made headlines, as did their split in December 2017 after nearly six years of dating. The exes had “evolved separately,” Dunham later explained in a piece for Vogue, though she continued to miss Antonoff and the bougie-boho life they built. “Someone would be coming over soon, the electric current of new romance in the air,” she wrote. “But I was still defining myself by what I had lost.”
By early 2018, Antonoff had moved on to Carlotta Kohl, a German model with a serene countenance and long, blond hair. A self-loathing Dunham found herself glued to Kohl’s Instagram Stories.
“I thought I was kind of proving weird girls can have love too,” she confided to The Cut that year. “And now he’s dating somebody who looks regular and normal and like girls are supposed to look.”
Dunham entered rehab to address her addiction to Klonopin and revealed that she was diagnosed with Ehler-Danlos syndrome, which affects connective tissues. She retreated from the spotlight and traded New York for London, where she married musician Luis Felber in September 2021, nine months after they met on a blind date “and didn’t stop talking for, like, eight hours,” Felber once told The New York Times.
Taylor Swift was a bridesmaid at their wedding. Earlier that year, the pop star and her favorite producer, Antonoff, triumphed at the Grammy Awards, scoring Album of the Year for Folklore, which had soothed Swifties at the height of the pandemic. Antonoff broke up with Kohl and started seeing Margaret Qualley, an ingénue with perfect skin, a carefree smile and seemingly no internal angst. How annoying! How Wendy Jones!
Antonoff and Qualley tied the knot in 2023, and Swift was among the guests. I’m guessing that she and Dunham remain on friendly terms, since the latter references Swift in Too Much. Dunham makes a welcome cameo as Jessica’s depressed older sister, Nora, who listens to Swift’s music while holed up in her bedroom, mourning her husband’s decision to leave her and explore his pansexuality.
I have to say that it is great to watch Dunham acting again. I never connected with Girls; that show did not represent the diverse, vibrant, optimistic New York that I knew back then. People loved Girls. They still do. I don’t get it! However, I thought Dunham’s breakthrough film, Tiny Furniture, was a tiny masterpiece. She maintains a charismatic screen presence: If she’s not in the frame, I wonder where she went. I want to see more of her. Especially when she’s playing a character like Nora, who exudes sardonic warmth. And whom Dunham named after her mentor, the late Nora Ephron, a fellow provocateur. Ephron infamously dramatized the demise of her marriage to journalist Carl Bernstein in Heartburn. That autobiographical novel rocked the literary world circa 1983 and was later adapted into the movie starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.
Clearly, Dunham had to flush Antonoff out of her system. I’m not suggesting that Zev is a faithful facsimile of her former partner. But Jessica and Felix are certainly stand-ins for Dunham and Felber. When hurt feelings and misunderstandings drive the lovers apart, Jessica must learn the hardest life lesson: How to forgive. Only then can she properly let go and move forward.
Echoing Ephron and Swift, Dunham processes emotions in a manner both healthy and unhinged: By taking a broken heart and making it into art. Revenge was never so bittersweet.
THE ROM-COM REPORT
Last week, I published a list of the most notable romantic comedies in the works, and since then, even more big projects have been announced! That means I must make this report a recurring feature. Here’s the latest news:
Just Picture It: Millie Bobby Brown will produce and star in a Netflix rom-com about two college students whose phones get all weird and start showing them photos from 10 years into the future, when they’re a “happily married couple with kids,” The Hollywood Reporter reveals. “The real glitch? They have yet to meet each other.” Brown’s love interest is Gabriel LaBelle, whom I met at a film festival last year. You know him from The Fabelmans and Saturday Night. LaBelle reminds me of Daniel Radcliffe. They share a similar childlike energy and enthusiasm. In that way, he might make a good foil for moody MBB.
Sense and Sensibility: Meanwhile, Esmé Creed-Miles was cast as Marianne Dashwood in the high-profile Austen adaptation. I must admit that I had no clue who she was until the announcement. Working Title producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner had already landed a bigger name, Daisy Edgar-Jones, to play the elder Dashwood sister. Edgar-Jones’ star status gives them cover to sprinkle lesser-known actors in the film. They have yet to announce their pick for Colonel Brandon, although who could ever replace Alan Rickman?
Funny You Should Ask: Erstwhile Bridgerton duke Regé-Jean Page has inked a deal with Apple to headline a series based on Elissa Sussman’s bestselling second-chance romance. The story involves a Hollywood hunk and the journalist interviewing him — say no more. I already love it.
The Love Hypothesis: And speaking of book-to-screen adaptations, Amazon MGM Studios will produce Ali Hazelwood’s beloved enemies-to-lovers romp, with Lili Reinhart playing PhD candidate Olive Smith.
Winter Games: It’s high time for a quality sports romance! Remember those? Love & Basketball. Wimbledon. The Cutting Edge, a.k.a. The Greatest Figure-Skating Movie of All Time. Well, now it appears that those gems might have a worthy successor in the Miles Teller-Hailee Steinfeld picture being set up at Paramount. According to THR, the script “centers on a perpetually overlooked skier and a self-sabotaging hockey legend that collide at their breaking points. Their unexpected connection threatens her chance for a medal and his shot at a comeback as they navigate romance and redemption in the Olympic Village.”
END CREDITS
- narrowed down her list of the Top 10 Best Books of 2025 (So Far).
- unveiled an excerpt of her upcoming must-read, Gwyneth: The Biography.
- celebrated the return of Valerie Cherish.
- shared the fascinating history of Anita Loos.
- discussed the enigma wrapped in a mystery that is Jennifer Aniston’s hypnotherapist boyfriend. He is very active on Instagram. On that note, check out his latest positive affirmation, but don’t stare too deeply into his eyes! He might hypnotize you!
Until next time,
Erin
Thanks for the backstory on Too Much! Knowing the autobiographical element motivates me to finish the show. Plus, the 2014 article link threw me back to the golden age of Jada Yuan profiles, which I used to read in the print version of New York magazine at the library. Miss those.
I had to put Too Much down after the first episode. It did not live up to my expectations. I was thrilled to see Lena emerge from hibernation, and I love watching Megan Stalter on Hacks. Throw in the American in Europe angle, my absolute favorite narrative type, and I was about to pour myself a Pimm’s cup and sit back in anticipation of an Emily-who-looks-like-the-rest-of-us in London-not-Paris. Of an Emily in Paris with the gloss wiped off, if you will.
Alas, I found that Too Much is trying to be too much. It should’ve gone one way or the other. Either be a lighthearted romcom that’s enjoyable to watch because it makes you feel good, with emotionally resonant characters and storylines. Or be a cutting cultural commentary that is enjoyable to watch because it is witty, acerbic, and makes you think about the state of our society.
In one anticlimactic moment, Isabelle repeats her new love interest’s words in a shitty British accent. He says (and I paraphrase) “That’s the worst kind of American humor—repeating what we say in a shitty British accent.” If this is what qualifies as a joke in Too Much, then I think I’m less of a Megan Stalter fan and more of a Kayla Schaeffer fan. Or maybe it’s just that I wasn’t prepared to see Hannah Horvath’s soul rise from the dead and animate Megan Stalter’s body. Not-hilarious antics (like lighting one’s nightgown on fire, calling 911, and being hosed down naked in the bathtub while hysterically crying in front of the man you just slept with) were my least favorite part of Girls.
I’m curious to understand why you didn’t like Girls. I would not call myself a fan, but I was a devoted viewer. Similar to its semi-namesake Gilmore Girls, Girls gave so many young women a lens through which to reflect the emotional weight of rites of passage that were rarely (at the time) depicted in media.
Co-sign on never connecting with Girls...makes me shy away from this one, but I'll give it a try I guess? I'm not really a Dunham fan altogether — always felt like it was lot of hype with little delivery (for me), but maybe I'll dig it.