Dying for Sex Review: Michelle Williams is resplendent as terminal cancer patient discovering kink

Two years since she was first diagnosed with breast cancer, Molly (Michelle Williams) is walking towards recovery. The disease seems to have abated until it all surges back. The cancer has metastasized, spread to her hips and rooted itself all over her body in Stage 4. However, there바카라�s also a sudden spurt in her as a sexual being. She grudges that her husband Steve (Jay Duplass) is disaffected with her erotic yearning and pulls away at sex. 바카라�I want to feel things,바카라� Molly asserts, while he keeps suggesting she must be confused about what she really wants.

Steve is reliable with all the practical, pragmatic needs but tuned out of her desires, the base of her feelings. What does she want in the moment? He can바카라�t fathom her spiked-up libido, passing it off as a phase and refusing to sincerely engage with it. He바카라�s befuddled how she, in her forties and with terminal illness staring at her, can be invested instead in thoughts of sex. Her marriage may have been functional on a daily basis but has lost all spark. It바카라�s turned dry, passionless; Molly is driven to shake up things, move out of it since Steve is so disinterested. With her body viewed as an anomaly, she rebels. At couple therapy, all she has on her mind is a hook-up for her twenties. She tries gathering herself, even as her mind is racing with those excited stimulations.

In Dying for Sex, writers/creators/showrunners Kim Rosenstock and Liz Meriwether nail a tricky tonal balance. You grieve for Molly as much as delight in her giddiness, joy of leaning into new experiences and sensations. Even as her life is winding down, an unexplored world is opening up. There바카라�s so much she wants to know and discover for herself, pleasures she never knew could be viable, attainable. It바카라�s like she바카라�s shedding a thick shell limned with hesitation, taboo and, crucially, the freedom to ask for more. She embarks on a string of hook-ups in fancy hotels and departmental stores. Every beat in these encounters바카라�from tentativeness to absolute thrill, awkwardness to ecstatic affirmation바카라�is marvelously etched in Williams바카라� radiant, wrenching and lucidly open performance.

The cancer바카라�s return compels Molly to take long-deferred plunges without doubting her footing, rethinking what바카라�s acceptable. Her marriage may have the safety nets but has become too unadventurous바카라�no longer a match for Molly바카라�s awakened endless sexual hunger. Her taste for uncharted experiences can바카라�t be met with Steve, who says he can indulge it only by way of pity. Molly breaks up, entrusting her best friend Nikki (an effervescent, scene-stealing Jenny Slate) with caregiving duties. Nikki may not seem like the best fit initially. She바카라�s terribly disorganized, frequently forgetful, misplacing everything from her phone to essential medical records. But Nikki wants to be present for Molly, and it바카라�s amazing to see how people can adapt.

Nikki puts her whole life on standby, fine with burning down her romantic relationship as well as any career aspiration. All she wants is to be with her best friend as much as possible in the little time they now have. Through it all바카라�Molly바카라�s expanding sexual interests and repeated health-troughs바카라�Nikki stays. Her unjudging presence encourages Molly, letting her be even more audacious and unstoppable. Here is someone to whom she doesn바카라�t have to overly explain herself. That itself is a big, freeing force. Molly knows Nikki will always listen, understand and be her biggest cheerleader.

Based on Nikki Boyer바카라�s eponymous Wondery podcast, Dying for Sex flutters alive in Williams and Slate바카라�s beautiful, touching and lively chemistry. They capture the warmth, safety and absolute transparency of a friendship that바카라�s seen it all: each other바카라�s rock-bottom and exultation, both ribbing with good cheer. The show바카라�s vision is grounded in hope and resurgence. A cynical viewer may be expecting a tide of friction and irreconciled hurt and shunted priorities to hit the friendship but Dying for Sex never succumbs to that. Nikki remains indefatigably cheery and buoyant but Slate also allows you to glimpse strains바카라�the profound fatigue of a caregiver. Tough emotions which Nikki herself has to weather in losing her best friend has to take the backseat to ensure Molly fulfils any final, erratic wish. An actress with a Shakespeare fixation, Nikki is bright, vivacious and unwavering; it바카라�s a joy to watch the friends guide each other through dating apps and vibrators.

The gentle, yet insistent gaze on Molly바카라�s blooming erotic journey is filled with empowering wonder. It has moments of light humor, like her fidgeting cluelessly with a cock cage or her bursting into a monologue on dicks to a stupefied room of fellow cancer patients. But there바카라�s also the blaze in the steady attraction she has with her neighbor (Rob Delaney). Their exchanges brim with pure electricity, especially in early stretches where the two evade but also implicitly cannot resist each other. As Dying for Sex widens, integrating childhood trauma and surreal mental clarity, it never treats Molly바카라�s sloping to myriad kinks as aberrations바카라�rather as something to revel in. 바카라�Sex is a wave,바카라� remarks Molly바카라�s social worker. It runs an entire gamut and must not be circumscribed to mere orgasm alone. Dying for Sex shows the range with both heat and humor and the loveliest male characters you may have ever seen on TV.