The Dazzling Discomfort Of ‘I Love Dick’

I Love Dick, Amazon‘s latest original series, is not a story about love. It’s a story about obsession, desire, sex, marriage, ambition, deception, you name it, and it’s hard to watch… but that’s not a dig at the show. There’s something absolutely dazzling about how difficult it is to keep your eyes trained on the screen during some scenes. The show, dubbed a “sex comedy”, can’t really be categorized as any one thing. It’s a bizarre, uncomfortable exploration of the taboo nature of female desire and the unrelenting essence of obsession. Based on the controversial 1997 feminist novel of the same name, the series follows Chris (Kathryn Hahn) and Sylvere (Griffin Dunne), a couple who begin to reexamine things when Chris becomes completely obsessed with the eponymous Dick (Kevin Bacon) while adjusting to the academic community of Marfa, Texas.

From the beginning of the pilot, the show establishes a sense of unease – not in the dramatic sense, but in the way that you’re just waiting for something awkward to happen – between its characters. Chris tries just a little too hard, wants a little too much, talks a little too loud. This energy in her is not sparked until she encounters Dick, and suddenly she has erupted – she can’t contain herself. Not in any sense of the word. She’s a fascinating subject to behold, and the gaze that the camera views her through is a unique one; she’s not an object. She’s not a spectacle. She’s a full-blown manifestation of a messy, sexual, witty, determined woman. The contrast between her husband Sylvere, a chatty, scholarly, neurotic man, and Dick, the rugged, silent type, adds to the dynamic intrigue of the entire series. They each awaken different sides of Chris, though the manic energy elicited by Dick is perhaps what allows us to get our first intimate look at Chris.

In another series, a lust-driven crush and pursuit of an affair with a grizzled Kevin Bacon might come off as a steamy, sexy, titillating endeavor. On I Love Dick, some scenes must be watched through your fingers because the secondhand embarrassment stemming Chris’ unabashed obsession is so prevalent. Chris also doesn’t keep this dirty crush a secret for long – she confesses her fantasies to Sylvere early on, and she begins writing letters to Dick that end up pinned over their bed and hang over them as they have loud, vigorous sex for the first time in a while. Dick’s lit a fire in both of them, and the bizarre evolution of their sexual relationship is a strange, fickle thing to behold. The more Dick ignores Chris, the crazier it makes her, and Sylvere can only tolerate so much of this humiliation. The assumption of many may be that the discomfort of this series lies in its raw sex scenes, but all of that skin just contributes to the series’ honesty. Sylvere and Chris, despite all of their issues, are a total delight to behold. Marriage isn’t just an idea here; it’s a fully fleshed-out, complex ordeal. One that they’re having a hard time navigating themselves, even after all these years. Maybe they don’t know each other at all – and that makes all of this even more uncomfortable.

Scene after scene, we are given what might be a traditional, quirky rom-com set-up, and then promptly have it ripped away from us and dangled over our heads. When Chris gets dressed up, tousles her bangs, and patiently waits for Dick’s attention, there isn’t some cute conclusion. She embarks on breathless rants, tears into his opinions on arts, claws after him in desperation. Even after he tells her that he doesn’t find her interesting, she tearfully tries to latch onto his arm, and later puts on a show of a dance at a local bar. Chris revels in her abjection, continues to pursue and objectify Dick despite his consistent dismissal of her. It’s a difficult-to-watch ordeal every time, and it could be easy to hate her – but that doesn’t happen. What occurs instead is a sense of awe at Chris’ complete lack of shame and unwavering, frenzied desire. It’s a study of humanity, awkward as it is to behold, and it’s one that’s flooring in the best ways.

Cringeworthy scenes are not all that new of a phenomenon – Girls kept up that habit for six seasons – but there’s something profound, something incredibly relatable about the zany, erotic energy that Chris is unable to harness, and that’s why the discomfort of the series is so dazzling. That kind of manic behavior lies within all of us – we just do a better job at keeping it contained. We shouldn’t judge Chris too harshly, however; it could be that a Dick coming into our lives is all it takes for us to reach that level of unhinged.