Her Smell is a cautionary rock and roll tale from 2018. It’s far from a starring role for Virginia Madsen, it’s another film where she’s on supporting actor duty, but given the style of movie this is then she fits in perfectly where she’s supposed to do.
The film is presented as a Documentary, the rise and fall of a Punk band going by the name of Something She led by front woman Becky Something (Elisabeth Moss).
We’re told the story of the rise in mostly amateur style home movie footage, the “now” footage is more the Documentary style you’d be accustomed to seeing on the likes of Netflix and covers the fall side of things. It’s told in sections if you will, you see glimpses of her life and career at different stages.
The fall of the band is pretty much all on Becky, we know something is wrong from the start of the film. We meet her true self backstage and her moods are obviously all over the place. Her bandmates Marielle Hell (Agyness Deyn), Ali Van der Wolff (Gayle Rankin) alongside her Ex-Husband (Dan Stevens), personal Shaman (Eka Darville) and band Manager, Howard (Eric Stoltz) all try to point her in the right direction but she clearly wants none of it.
From there, it’s pretty much an uphill struggle for Becky, we watch as she self implodes and watches everything she’s worked hard for up till that point to be taken away from her piece by piece. Elisabeth Moss gives us an interesting character for sure, you can’t help but feel sorry for her but also think she deserves everything she’s getting.
Virginia Madsen shows up in the third part of the movie, she plays Becky’s mother, Ania. And we know she’s been a long suffering Mother at that. Her performance is brief but well executed. All the actors in Her Smell do an excellent job and Virginia is truly among her peers here. I’ve often said that when Virginia does these small roles that her talent is being wasted, but not in the case of this movie. She fits in perfectly.
By the end of the movie we’ve seen Beckys life in the light of fame for just over 10 years. She’s at the “comeback” stage, but she herself is a very different person and more thankful, wary and nervous of her position.
I enjoyed the movie, I like the “look behind the scenes” feel of it all – I’m a big fan of all kinds of music and have read more than my fair share of musicians’ biographies over the years and so it all feels kind of relatable. Watching the movie I was instantly reminded of Courtney Love more than anything else but apparently the character of Becky Something is based on Axl Rose more than anyone else. As Axl is the only member of Guns ‘n Roses not to have released a book and doesn’t really do interviews I’ve nothing to compare that to so can’t comment.
Virginia Madsen previously worked with Eriz Stoltz on the 1995 film, The Prophecy. Eric missed out on working with her brother Michael in Pulp Fiction after he turned down the role of Vincent Vega, and also missed out on the chance of working with Virginia in the same movie as she was on the short list for playing Mia Wallace. Which, I find kind of interesting and thought I’d mention as we’re all here.
Her Smell is a very different kind of movie to watch, I think you either enjoy this kind of film or you don’t. And, if you’re reading this then you probably know which you are now. But if you don’t, then you can do much worse than watching this to find out.
Availability:
Not great if you want to own it. I’ve only ever seen it on DVD at a high price, my copy is Australian and I had to pay for it.
Vinegar Syndrome do have a Blu-Ray release of it, but it can be hard to get hold of outside of the US and it’ll be reigon locked to the US if you do.
It is available on Amazon Prime if you’re only interested in watching the movie. It’s sometimes included in their Prime Video section, but if not then you can also rent / buy it.
Trailer:
| < Previous | Home | Next > |
