Love Life: Season One

September 6, 2020 3:34 PM - Season 1 (Full Season)

Darby Carter (Anna Kendrick) navigates work and romance in New York City, often with the insecurities of youth bubbling to the surface. We first meet Darby in 2012 as an NYU grad living with three roommates: impulsive best friend Sara, Sara's easy-going boyfriend Jim, and brutally honest friend Mallory. Following Darby over the next several years, Love Life shows how each of Darby's encounters brings her closer to finding her "person", even if she doesn't know it yet.
posted by DirtyOldTown (9 comments total)

This is like a remake of High Fidelity that removes the
specificity of Rob's music obsession and the wariness and self-examination of Rob's memory lane investigations in favor of... Anna Kendrickness.

On the one hand, Anna Kendrickness is a powerful force. On the other hand, her character isn't that complex. On the other other hand, some of the boyfriend types she cycles through are perfectly rendered. (Statistically speaking, at least six MeFites are dating analogues of Magnus right now.)

Call it High Fidelity by way of How I Met Your Mother, buoyed a bit by the indefatigable likability of Anna Kendrick. In a normal, chockful tv season I might not have bothered. In the current production-stalled abyss, we were happy to have a pleasant half hour piffle like this.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:38 PM on September 6, 2020

I binged and enjoyed this quite a bit.

Not unlike the end of How I Met Your Mother, it felt a bit unsatisfying to spend so much time on the journey and then not get to know basically nothing about what happens during the big, important relationship we'd been waiting for.

The Magnus episodes made me extremely uncomfortable because, yes, I can confirm MeFites indeed have encountered those real-life analogues.

I see they were renewed for a second season. I'm curious what they do with that -- show life with her soulmate? follow someone else's relationship history?
posted by katieinshoes at 11:41 AM on September 7, 2020

I'm hoping they just pick a similarly irresistible lead and follow them.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:08 PM on September 7, 2020

I keep thinking on this one, particularly the episode about her relationship with her mom and the one about Sara. This is lingering in my kind more than I expected.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:47 PM on September 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

This review in the UK edition of GQ is pretty spot on.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:14 AM on October 8, 2020

I look forward to spending a season watching William Jackson Harper searching for his person.
posted by katieinshoes at 8:29 PM on November 5, 2020 [1 favorite]

Something about the detached tone of the voiceover really reminds me of the voice of the book in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:20 PM on December 3, 2020

I am on episode two at her ex boss boyfriend's father's funeral and I am not sure I could hate Darby more than I do. Is she meant to be the emotional equivalent of a 13 year old boy?

I normally like Anna Kendrick but nothing about her this episode was even slightly sympathetic. I didn't like the boyfriend but holy shit.

(My father recently died, and I would have cut someone off if they did a tenth of what she did at the funeral/wake.)
posted by jeather at 8:16 PM on December 19, 2021

Ok, I finished it -- I didn't really get into liking Darby all that much more, but ok, fair enough. What I really didn't like was how we didn't see anything about Grant or why he was "her person", after we saw all the other relationships -- it's very Hollywood but also dull to show only the failures and not what a successful relationship can look like.

Anyways, on to season 2 because William Jackson Harper is a draw.
posted by jeather at 6:15 PM on January 1, 2022