There’s a lot to love about Rachel Sennott’s new eight-episode comedy series, I Love LA. Sennott, a comedian whose career took off with roles in Shiva Baby and Bottoms (which she also co-wrote), takes almost free reign in this new series as its creator, executive producer, and star. Her signature style of humour is everywhere in this show, with each thirty-minute episode filled with self-satirical, quick and witty one-liners, and relatable but slightly unhinged characters and choices.
The show follows five friends trying to make it in Los Angeles while navigating influencer culture, changing relationships, and the terrifying reality of getting older. I Love LA centres around Maia (Sennott), a 27-year-old ambitious but clientless talent manager desperate to prove herself to her boss (Leighton Meester). When her frenemy and NYC it-girl influencer Tallulah (Odessa A’Zion) storms back into town, Maia becomes her manager. Rounding out the cast is Alani (True Whitaker, daughter of Forest Whitaker), a lovable and supportive nepo baby, Charlie (Jordan Firstman), a celebrity stylist desperate to climb the social ladder, and Maia’s boyfriend Dylan (Josh Hutcherson), a teacher.
Becoming relevant and important on the internet, and therefore LA, is exhausting, something that an influencer reminds Tallulah: “if you stop for a second, you will fucking disappear.” What makes I Love LA work is that it is very self-aware: it knows that this land of modern internet fame that the show is entangled and enraptured with is insane. This is clear with the type of problems the characters deal with, for instance grappling with an internet feud over a stolen Balenciaga bag.
The basis of the show might turn some viewers away. The characters in this show are messy, ambitious and sometimes pretty narcissistic. There are certainly uncomfortable moments where I wanted to scream at the TV. I wonder too for those not chronically online or part of the younger generation if the show might still resonate because of the amount of internet references.
It takes a few episodes for I Love LA to really find its footing, but there are still plenty of laughs to make the time worthwhile. Sharp and satirical, the show works really well as a new Gen Z comedy. I Love LA is easily bingeable, very quotable, sometimes utterly insane but always somehow relatable.
“Rachel Sennott at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival 02 (cropped)” by Jay Dixit is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.