Lena Dunham’s Netflix Romantic Dramedy

In the closing minutes of the second episode, Jess (Megan Stalter), the brash American protagonist of Netflix’s Too Much, lies down with the mix CD her new British beau, Felix (Will Sharpe), has made for her. After positioning the headphones over her ears, he leans back as well, content to just curl up on the bed beside her as she listens. No more words are exchanged, and no bodily fluids either. But as the camera lingers on their gentle expressions, we feel for ourselves the specialness of their bond, the profound comfort and pleasure they take in each other’s presence.

It’s a lovely moment of intimacy, all the more disarming for being so unassuming. It also, unfortunately, turns out to be something of a rarity in the 10-episode series. Inspired by the real-life courtship between its married creators, Lena Dunham and Luis Felber, Too Much is nothing if not candid, analyzing its leads’ red flags with the clear-eyed empathy of a seasoned therapist. But it struggles to lose itself in its emotions, yielding a romance that’s sweet enough to like but too cool to fall head over heels for.

The distance does not stem from any particular coyness about its characters. In the first minutes of the Dunham-directed premiere, Jess breaks into the Brooklyn apartment that her ex, Zev (Michael Zegen) shares with his knitting influencer girlfriend (Emily Ratajkowski). By the end of its roughly 30 minutes, Jess has made her way to London in hopes of a fresh start — only to accidentally set herself on fire her first night there, leaving her shouting for someone to call whatever the U.K. equivalent of 911 might be. Endearingly klutzy heroines may be a staple of the Richard Curtis rom-coms and Jane Austen adaptations Jess adores, but she’s blown past “adorkable” into “messy,” even if she strenuously objects to that word.

Not that her Mr. Darcy has it much more together. Broke indie musician Felix, whom she first sees performing in a grimy pub, comes with his own share of addiction- and trauma-related baggage, as becomes increasingly, heartbreakingly apparent in the second half of the season. The series is unsparing in its cataloguing of the couple’s highs and lows together, whether it’s a blissed-out night of screwing until they physically can’t anymore, or a knock-down-drag-out fight outside a manor wedding for Felix’s most insufferably snotty schoolmates.

Through it all, Too Much’s not-so-secret weapon is Dunham and Felber’s dialogue, just snappy enough to sound more interesting than real people but not so clever it reeks of writerly self-indulgence. They’re able to conjure an entire lifetime of hopes and disappointments for Jess with an offhand line like, “I just need to adjust my expectations. I’m always adjusting my expectations,” and to spark a cozy chemistry between Felix and Jess within minutes of meeting via slightly dark, slightly offbeat riffing about murder and nefarious Wi-Fi signals.

We grasp in an instant the affectionate-but-exasperated dynamic among Jess’ family — big sis Nora (Dunham), mom Lois (Rita Wilson) and grandma Dottie (Rhea Perlman), all living together in an “intergenerational Grey Gardens hell” on Long Island — when we hear them joking about blowjobs while streaming Sense and Sensibility. Or Zev’s particular brand of crappy-ex-boyfriend-ness when we hear the way he talks to Jess in flashbacks, with insults disguised as compliments about how she’s “beautiful” but not in a Hadid way, or “too smart” to enjoy the Miley Cyrus track she’s jamming out to.

And yet, despite its knack for nailing characters with a single sentence and its willingness to embrace all their faults and foibles, Too Much feels emotionally distant, as if we’re being told about all of these experiences rather than invited into them. The disconnect comes through most strongly in the subplots involving supporting characters, like the flirtations between Jess’ various marketing coworkers (which include her imperious boss, played by Richard E. Grant). While we might be privy to major developments — a first date, a breakup, a reconciliation — nearly all the connective tissue happens offscreen. These aren’t journeys we’re taking with them, so much as the sort of intermittent updates you might glean from a Instagram posts or a gossipy mutual acquaintance.

But the remove comes through as well, and more frustratingly, in Jess and Felix’s relationship. It doesn’t help that Stalter is uneven in her lead turn. While she can be touching in Jess’ quiet, vulnerable moments — especially opposite the mellower and more grounded performances by Sharpe and Zegen — she struggles with the character’s more extravagant emotional outbursts, as if she hasn’t figured out how to go big without turning it into the kind of jokey bit that she regularly steals scenes with on Hacks.

Far more of the blame, however, lies in the show’s choice to focus so heavily on unpacking its central couple’s baggage that it loses sight of why any of us are here in the first place. For a whirlwind romance, Too Much feels awfully dispassionate. While there’s plenty of enthusiastic sex and confessional conversation, there are few of the lingering gazes or intense close-ups that might bring us into their shoes, and allow us to get as swept up in Jess and Felix’s bond as they do. And without that visceral sense of desire, Too Much comes off less like a romance unfolding for our pleasure, and more like a couples therapy session being held for their benefit.