“It Gets Worse” Review: A24’s British Comedy Hands “Girls” Over to Gen Z

“It Gets Worse” is a star vehicle for its 20-something writer-creator, Leo Reich, and it skewers a dysfunctional friend group flailing about in a big city. There are real differences from “Girls”: the protagonist is a gay man, not all the main characters are white, and the action unfolds in London rather than New York. Even so, the influence of Lena Dunham’s show is unmistakable. By the time the parallels sink in, though, “It Gets Worse” has already beaten you to the punch. An underemployed striver being told that an internship won’t deliver the professional boost they hoped for is a beat straight out of “Girls.” This time, the boss delivering the bad news is played by Dunham herself. A Baton Pass From Millennials to Gen Z Reich, the lead and creative voice of the series, previously worked with Dunham on her Netflix show “Too Much,” where he played one of the heroine’s chaotic co-workers. Dunham may have seen a kindred spirit in him: another precocious child of urban creatives (his father is a film producer) with a sharp eye for his peers’ self-delusion. If Hannah Horvath was “a voice of a generation,” a joke that has slowly taken on a ring of earnestness as “Girls” has stood the test of time, Dunham’s cameo marks a passing of the baton from millennials to Gen Z. The Setup A24 originally produced the show for the UK’s Channel 4, where it premiered last month. It will air on Paramount+ in the US. At a tight, typically British six episodes, it focuses on a narrow window: the stretch between college friends turned roommates Ethan (Reich), Abi (Emily Fairn) and Sam (Olive Gray) having to leave one flat and signing a lease on another. Whether they actually move is an open question, given the trio’s poor collective decision-making. Ethan, selfish and hapless, gets so distracted by internet scrolling that he fails to fix a hole in the wall and loses their security deposit, to Sam’s anger. Abi actually wants to move in with her boyfriend, Tom (Sean Delaney), but can’t bring herself to tell the others. Sam, an aspiring writer, supplements her Substack essays with standardized test tutoring, which may still not cover London rent. Zadie Smith as Narrator Everyone’s inner monologue is narrated by author Zadie Smith, whose cool, assured voice-over contrasts productively with the characters’ anxious scrambling. When Dunham’s girlboss tells Abi she apologizes too much, the younger woman’s first instinct is to say she’s sorry. Andrew Scott also guest stars. The review notes that Reich suffers slightly from the paradox of early comedic success: failure is funny, so Ethan is a hot mess while the actor playing him counts Pulitzer finalist Smith, Dunham and BAFTA winner Scott as collaborators. Still, the show is sharp enough in diagnosing generational malaise that the irony quickly fades. Pessimism Baked In “Ethan had one of the easiest lives in recorded human history,” Smith says at the start. That relative comfort has only created more chances for self-sabotage. Abi seems to like the lifestyle of settled monogamy more than her actual boyfriend. The foodie satire, like the portrait of Anthony Bourdain that Tom hangs in the kitchen, cuts especially deep. Ethan chases straight guys who treat him badly. Sam is hung up on an ex who invites her to crash at a queer commune that hosts sex parties with consent forms. Not all of their problems, Brexit among them, are of their own making, but many are. As the title suggests, the show has pessimism baked in from the start. Its resigned nihilism, softened with gallows humor, takes after Ethan, who once contemplated suicide but found sourcing enough paracetamol too much of a hassle. The question the series leaves is what else there is to do except muddle through.