Dying for Sex review: Superb Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate series will make you feel everything

There are times when you’re OK to be numb to what you’re watching — that second-screen, laundry-folding experience certain streamers assume we want all the time, as if the audience can’t be trusted to put their phone down to pay attention.

But there are other times — hopefully most of the time — when we want to be fully immersed in a story that traps us in a vice-grip, magnetised to every moment unfolding on screen.

Dying for Sex is definitely the latter.

The phenomenal eight-part miniseries will make you feel all the feelings. It will bathe you in warmth, tickle you with its humour, surround you with hope in the inherent care people have for each other and it will wrench your heart with its emotional denouement. It will also, if you’ll allow for a moment, stir the loins.

Starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate, Dying for Sex is based on the podcast of the same name, hosted by Nikki Boyer about the real-life story of Molly Kochan, although the show, on which Boyer is also an executive producer, does take some creative liberties as its long disclaimer explains.

Williams plays Molly, a forty-something woman who has been in remission from breast cancer for two years when she gets the worst news: the cancer is back and it’s terminal. She is given no more than five years.

The first thing Molly does is leave her husband Steve (Jay Duplass), who hasn’t touched her since her first cancer diagnosis. She has never had an orgasm with another person and she is not OK with the status quo.

Molly wants to experience everything before she dies and the top of her list is indulging in her unfulfilled desires. Free from Steve’s coddling and helicoptering, she turns to her best friend Nikki (Slate), whose oversized carpet bag packed with god-knows-what symbolises her lack of organisational skills.

But Nikki really steps up, to the detriment of her personal life and career as a jobbing actor. The intense friendship between Molly and Nikki is beautifully captured by a moment in which Nikki explains to her sister that she may have Molly’s blood on the top she’s wearing but when Molly is gone, she’ll be so glad she has this piece of her.

That might sound maudlin and another-cancer-story, but Dying for Sex is anything but. It is threaded with a frank and sometimes risqué sense of humour. If penis jokes make you blush, you’ll need to get over it.

Molly’s exploration of her desires lead her to many interesting encounters. There’s the guy who wants to be penis-shamed despite possessing, apparently, the most beautiful phallus Molly has ever seen, as well as the man who dresses up as a dog.

There’s also her neighbour (Rob Delaney), with whom she becomes entangled in a genuinely horny and eventually tender sexual relationship.

Dying for Sex never judges these kinks, although the dude impatient for a handjob gets a metaphorical sneer.

The series’ honest portrayal of desire and sex, from the lightest touch to the most raucous play, is one of the most refreshing representations on screen. It’s all part of the spectrum, as long as everyone is consenting.

Created by Elizabeth Meriwhether (New Girl) and Kim Rosenstock with Australian filmmaker Shannon Murphy (Babyteeth, which also centred on a character with cancer) directing six out of the eight episodes, Dying for Sex has a potent female voice and perspective.

Williams is one of the most talented actors of her generation and as Molly, she is entrancing, from the character’s most vulnerable moments to her spiciest, and especially when she is both of those at the same time.

Her wry voiceover is deployed smartly as Molly’s interiority is increasingly mirrored on the outside — when you’re dying, you care less and less about other people’s judgment.

Slate too is superb as Nikki, and it is through her presence that Dying for Sex really anchors the depth of Molly and Nikki’s friendship. Perhaps even more than Molly’s exploration of her desire, it’s this aspect of the series that hits the hardest.

Nikki’s sacrifices and the weight of her pre-grieving her friend’s impending death is beautifully written and performed. If you’re not crying, you need to ask yourself why.

At a time when The White Lotus skewers female friendships, to have this example of the deeply loving bond between two women reminds us of all the ways in which people are there for each other when it matters the most.

Dying for Sex is streaming on Disney+ from April 4