The new FX series “Dying for Sex” is many things — a showcase for Michelle Williams and a stellar supporting cast, an open-hearted glimpse into erotic exploration and a reminder that we would all do well to live as if our time on this earth was limited because it is.
It could also be this century’s “Love Story.”
In 1970, Erich Segal’s tale of a young culture-clashing couple undone by terminal illness left millions sobbing together in their seats. Despite some critics who considered it contrived and sentimental, ”Love Story” became, and remains (adjusted for inflation), one of the highest-grossing films in history. It received seven Oscar nominations (winning for score), launched a cultural tagline (“Love means never having to say you’re sorry”) and prompted thousands of young women to take piano lessons so they could play the iconic theme song and weep.
Deathbed scenes have always been a part of film and television, but after “Love Story,” terminal illness became a cinematic genre. “Bang the Drum Slowly,” “Brian’s Song,” “Something for Joey,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Beaches,” “Shadowlands,” “Stepmom,” “One True Thing,” “The Big C,” “The Fault in Our Stars” — the list goes on and on.
And it now includes “Dying for Sex,” an iteration so modern it is adapted from a podcast, available on a streamer (Hulu, starting Friday) and framed around a journey into the BDSM experience.
It’s also funny, heartbreaking, deeply humane and more than occasionally insightful as hell. Sex and death have never been such bittersweet bedmates.
Based on the eponymous Wondery podcast by Nikki Boyer, in which a woman with cancer, Molly Kochan, shared her sexual escapades and insights before her death in 2018, “Dying for Sex” doesn’t, er, pussyfoot around the story it wants to tell. We meet Molly (Michelle Williams) in a therapy session with her husband, Steve (Jay Duplass), who is trying to mansplain why they don’t have sex. Molly’s years-long fight with breast cancer made it difficult; now that she wants to resume, Steve remains reluctant.
In the middle of the session, Molly receives the news that her cancer has metastasized; further treatment may extend her life but not for long. She flees the session, takes shelter in a nearby bodega and calls her friend Nikki (Jenny Slate), with whom she has the most hilarious “I’m dying” conversation in the history of television, which quickly devolves into a screaming match between Nikki and the owner of the bodega. “She’s an actress,” Molly says of Nikki. “Her emotions live very close to the surface.”
Like many facing such a dire prognosis, Molly is determined to spend the remainder of her life doing precisely what she wants to do. And what she wants to do is not reassure her partner that their love was always enough or prepare her family for her demise or go off on a bucket-list jaunt with her best friends. No, she wants to have sex, mind-blowing, forget-the-world-and-all-its-turmoil sex, that will include experiencing orgasm with a partner, something she has never done.
Steve is a nonstarter; he’s more interested in monitoring Molly’s sugar intake than bringing her to climax, insisting instead that her sudden desire is a morbid manifestation of unresolved childhood trauma — Molly was molested by her mother’s boyfriend. He’s not entirely wrong, but read the room, man. Buoyed by an unexpected sex-positive conversation with palliative-care social worker Sonya (Esco Jouléy), Molly moves in with Nikki, telling her, ”I don’t want to die with Steve; I want to die with you.” She then embarks on a sexual odyssey that, after a few false starts, reveals her penchant for dominance and submission.
So not exactly “Beaches.” But, you know, sort of.
Don’t get me wrong, “Dying for Sex” is very much about sex. Written by Elizabeth Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock, the show takes the need for erotic pleasure seriously. With a pixie haircut, overalls and stripey sweaters, Molly is a quiet-voiced, waifish dream girl whom Williams makes incandescent with desire and just plain horniness. Sure, her need to exhibit dominance and feel the titillating power of submission could be read as metaphors for an attempt to both gain control over her body and accept that it is shutting down. But “Dying for Sex” is, mercifully, less interested in psychoanalyzing her, or anyone, than it is in nonjudgmentally presenting the many paths to consensual sexual pleasure and fun.
Though Molly’s goal of mutual orgasm remains elusive and she is, quite literally, haunted by her childhood trauma, the men and women she meets on her BDSM journey are playful, kind and often quite wise. In a stand-out performance, Jouléy’s Sonya is a near-angelic bridge between Molly’s roles as terminal patient and sexual explorer. “You early millennials are so tragic,” she tells Molly and Nikki. “You think sex is just penetration and orgasm.”
Like every good terminal-illness tale, however, “Dying for Sex” is also very much about love. Self-love, certainly, but all the other kinds as well. A grouchy, slovenly neighbor (played with sad-sack sexiness by Rob Delaney) accidentally introduces her to the pleasures of dominance and submission, and their encounters lead to an emotional tenderness neither expected to find. Molly also must come to terms with her estranged mother, Gail (just when you think the cast can’t get any stronger, Sissy Spacek shows up), and she even grants some closure to Steve.
But the “Love Story” of “Dying for Sex” belongs to Nikki and Molly. Female friendship has become the emotional workhorse of modern drama and comedy, but it’s tough to think of one more vividly depicted than this one. Slate’s comedic brilliance is a given, but her ability to pull off both Nikki’s outward chaos — a bottomless purse, an inability to keep track of time, a constant whirlwind of wisecracking emotions — and the inner stillness of complete understanding is breathtaking to watch.
Nikki is a hot mess who knows exactly what needs to be done. Her best friend will soon be gone from this earth, so nothing else matters more than being with and supporting her right up until the very end. Yes, it comes at a price — Nikki gets booted from a play, loses her boyfriend, celebrates Hanukkah in the hallway of her apartment building — but so be it. She will have no regrets, and given the circumstances, that is the best she can hope for.
Are you crying yet? You will be.
“Dying for Sex” is at times a bit too “perfect” to be perfect — neither Molly nor Nikki is working, but there never seems to be any concern about money; the medical care Molly receives is always attentive and available (Sonya is, as previously noted, an angel); and Steve gets kicked to the curb pretty brutally — caring for someone with cancer is incredibly difficult.
But that’s all post-mortem nitpicking, easily overlooked by the power of the performances, the hilarious courage of the writing and the glorious reconstruction of a familiar genre.
As “Love Story” proved all those years ago, we all need an excuse to sob in the dark together.
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