Part Girls, part Entourage: this new ‘hot internet girl’ comedy doesn’t disappoint

5 hours ago 4

I Love LA ★★★★

It’s rare a new show garners comparisons to classics such as Sex and the City and Girls before it’s even commissioned to series. But that’s the power of new HBO comedy I Love LA, hyped online for almost two years as Untitled Rachel Sennott Pilot, and more specifically the power of Rachel Sennott – the show’s creator and star who could very well claim to be the voice of her generation or, to quote her forbearer, at least a voice of a generation.

Whichever metric you’re judging the show on, it doesn’t disappoint.

Rachel Sennott, Jordan Firstman and True Whitaker in I Love LA.

Honing her voice – confessional, shameless, sharp – on Twitter and building her profile via various independent projects (Shiva Baby, Bottoms), Sennott is a zillennial “hot internet girl” with the Charli XCX music video cameo to prove it. She’s a fresh voice in Hollywood who came up on the scene with NYU classmate Ayo Edebiri (The Bear) and shares a similar sense of humour (though posts considerably more irony-laced thirst traps). And I Love LA very much uses its creator’s life as a sandbox.

Sennott stars as Maia, an aspiring talent manager who moved from New York to LA two years ago and has been struggling to find her feet despite writing great captions for socials posts spruiking Chipotle bowls. On her 27th birthday she has to contest with not just her Saturn return but the return of an old friend, “New York it girl” Tallulah (Odessa A’zion): a rising influencer for whom everything appears to come easy, an unwieldly id to Maia’s ego, carrying a Balenciaga bag and screaming to go to the club.

The increasingly co-dependant duo serve as a neat metaphor: the self you project online and the one who manages that performance (and all its anxieties) behind the scenes. It’s a resonant idea for a generation that, like Maia, increasingly sees the pathway to home-ownership paved not with salaried work but “collabs” on leggings and Erewhon smoothies. And the show, with writers including TikTok-famous comedian EJ Marcus, is one of the few series to explicitly write about online trends and etiquette without seeming outdated or cringe.

But, as the title suggests, this is also a very specific group of LA-coded people (Sennott credits another HBO show, Entourage, as a major reference point). Maia’s friendship group consists of the sweet but inept Alani, a nepo baby of a famous Hollywood director (played winkingly by True Whitaker, daughter of Forest), and a striving celebrity stylist who’s trying to get tea on Zendaya to appease his pop star client (“Is she secretly fat?“) The latter, Charlie, is portrayed by Sennott’s long-time friend Jordan Firstman (Search Party, English Teacher) who, much like Tallulah, found internet celebrity during the pandemic. And at one point the gang are blessed by an extended, inspired encounter with Elijah Wood.

Ironically the most “normal” character, Maia’s schoolteacher boyfriend Dylan, a great foil to the madness, is played by the most famous name: Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games).

Rachel Sennott and Josh Hutcherson in I Love LA.

Like Sex and the City and Girls before it, there are universal themes about young adulthood explored with spiky humour and occasionally surprising heart – navigating old friendships, striving to be taken seriously in your career, differing values in your relationships.

But is a show about hot internet girls by a real-life hot internet girl relatable enough for people to start declaring themselves a Maia, Tallulah, Alani or Charlie? Time will tell.

I Love LA premieres on HBO Max from November 3.

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