2019-11-13 The Hollywood Reporter

Reviews

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 88 NOVEMBER 13, 2019

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Television

Hulu’s new comedy Dollface seems to be going
after a specialized demographic — namely,
women in their 20s with perpetual social
media access and an encyclopedic knowledge
of current popular culture, who somehow
don’t watch enough TV to recognize how
derivative Dollface is at every turn.
There are things to like about the series. It’s
a triumphant return to form for Kat Dennings
after all of those years trapped under the
broadcast hackery of CBS’ 2 Broke Girls, and an
appealing showcase for the generally ill-used
Brenda Song, the generally underrated Shay
Mitchell and exceptional scene-stealer Esther
Povitsky. In fact, the entire cast of Dollface is
so great that the prevailing feelings generated
by watching the first season’s 10 half-hour
episodes are occasional mirth and consis-
tent certainty that they could all be put to
better use.
Dennings plays Jules, a web designer for
Woöm, a Goop-esque female empowerment
brand overseen by the Gwyneth-esque Celeste
(Malin Akerman). As the Jordan Weiss-
created series begins, Jules is being dumped
by her boyfriend of five years, Jeremy (Connor
Hines). Their apartment is really his apart-
ment; their social engagements and plans
largely stem from him. Little in Jules’ life is
actually hers, and she has allowed her friend-
ships with college chums Madison (Song) and
Stella (Mitchell) to lapse. Dollface finds her
struggling to carve out her own identity as
her social circle grows to include co-worker
Izzy (Povitsky), who is identity-starved in a
different way.
Adding flavor to this pursuit of inde-
pendence — or at least a new kind of
co-dependence — is Weiss’ decision to capture
Jules’ moments of desperation in fantasy
sequences, like when Jules departs her awk-
ward breakup in a bus full of sobbing new
singles driven by a woman with the head of a
giant cat. The Cat Lady (voiced by Beth Grant)
makes regular appearances in Jules’ hallu-
cinations, which
will call to mind
Man Seeking Woman
— except that FX
comedy appears to

AIRDATE Friday, Nov. 15 (Hulu)
CAST Kat Dennings,
Brenda Song, Shay Mitchell,
Esther Povitsky
CREATOR Jordan Weiss

Dollface

The Hulu series is a welcome
return to form for Kat Dennings,
but the shadow of better
female-friendship comedies
looms large By Daniel Fienberg

having her unique singsong deadpan rhythms

blunted by the multicam mediocrity of a CBS

sitcom; it’s a treat to see, here, how much she

can do with a withering one-liner, a wordless

sound or an eye roll.

When she isn’t being lazily utilized as

a fetish object — I’m looking at you, Fox’s

Dads — Song can display a razor-sharp comic

precision honed over her years on the Disney

Channel, which pairs well with Mitchell’s

unexpected silliness as she continues to prove,

after last year’s Yo u, that she’s the best of the

Pretty Little Liars. As the painfully awkward

friend prone to inappropriate non sequiturs,

Izzy is the character who most frequently

tends to slip into stereotype, but Povitsky

keeps her endearing and grounded.

Also enhancing things is a stellar rotation

of guest turns, starting with Akerman’s amus-

ing Gwyneth-trolling all the way through the

season’s string of potential love interests,

questionable boyfriends and bad dates played

by the likes of Matthew Gray Gubler, Goran

Visnjic and, memorably, Macaulay Culkin.

The elements are all present for Dollface to

become a much better show if it gets the chance;

there’s a lot of room to do something smarter

and more imaginative with this structure and

story. The cast is already at that next level,

waiting for the series itself to catch up.

have had a higher budget and a more consis-

tent approach to its whimsy.

Other comparisons are unavoidable, too.

Everything from the major episodic plotlines

(the girls suggest that Jules needs a little

casual sex, but Jules inevitably turns the fling

into a relationship) to the smallest comic bits

(Gal pals obsess over The Bachelor! Gal pals

go to the bathroom together!) feels recycled.

Maybe we’re in a golden age of comedies about

female friendship or maybe there have just

been a handful of recent great examples, from

Broad City to Tu c a & B er t i e to Hulu’s very own

PEN15, but Dollface is masquerading a lot of

knockoff geegaws as boutique accessories.

The best thing Dollface is doing is directly

examining the mixture of nourishment and

toxicity that can be found in female friendship

in your late 20s — which is to say that it turns

the subtext of generally better shows into text

as its cast of impossibly attractive actresses

playing characters living in impossibly nice

apartments make their way through impos-

sibly scrubbed-clean parts of Los Angeles.

Every possible rough edge relating to gender,

sexuality or class has been sanded off of these

women and this story.

Yet Dollface stays consistently watchable,

and even its most familiar punchlines often

land thanks to this cast. Dennings spent years

Kat Dennings (right) plays a young L.A. web designer at a turning point in her life, and Matthew Gray Gubler a potential suitor.