Jill Soloway’s new Amazon series I Love Dick doesn’t look a whole lot like her queer opus Transparent. It’s set in Marfa, and stars a husband and wife in a seemingly conventional relationship. Though Chris (Kathryn Hahn) and Sylvere (Griffin Dunne) are hardly a traditional American family unit. Soloway’s adaptation of Chris Kraus’s controversial 1997 novel centers on the couple’s crumbling marriage as they navigate life in an arts community in Texas’s hippest town — where they meet a local professor named Dick (Kevin Bacon), develop an unhealthy psycho-sexual obsession with him, and write him very NSFW fan mail. The series hits Amazon Prime on May 12, and the streaming service has just released the official full-length trailer. It features sex, art parties, dreamy desert landscapes, and a surprising amount of comedy.
Kraus’s cult book is semi-autobiographical, containing elements of fiction and memoir. Kraus is, naturally, Chris, while Sylvere is based on her ex-husband. Amazon calls it a “lauded feminist novel” for its exploration of the female experience within the arts world. “Told in Rashomon-style shifts of POV, I Love Dick charts the unraveling of a marriage, the awakening of an artist and the deification of a reluctant messiah,” promises the description on the streaming service. But one of the many reasons to watch might be the characters not directly involved in the unconventional love triangle. The series also features artist/actress/activist India Salvor Menuez plus Phoebe Robinson of 2 Dope Queens.
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Text Hannah Ongley