Girlboss Index Of Series

In this auteurist era of television, the likability question has become a litmus test for enlightened viewing. Wanting protagonists to be likable signals a lack of sophistication. Making protagonists “difficult” is a sign of authenticity.

I’m fine with that, as far as it goes. But Sophia Amoruso, the heroine of the new Netflix series “Girlboss, ” demonstrates that the question isn’t that simple.

The show, whose 13 episodes will be available Friday, is based on the memoir “#GIRLBOSS” by the real-life Sophia Amoruso, a digital entrepreneur who founded the fashion e-commerce site Nasty Gal. The show was created and partly written by Kay Cannon, screenwriter of the “Pitch Perfect” movies.

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The fictional Sophia — each episode begins with a note that the show is a “real loose” version of Ms. Amoruso’s story — is at the far end of the TV scale of difficulty. And she’s all the more realistic for that. If you don’t know a woman whom you love despite her characteristic anger, obsessiveness, insensitivity and refusal to listen to others, you may dismiss Sophia as a caricature. If you do, one moment after another in “Girlboss” will ring surprisingly true.

But truth doesn’t necessarily equal drama, or in this case half-hour inspirational dramedy. It’s fine that the Sophia of “Girlboss” isn’t likable. The problem is that she isn’t particularly interesting.

It’s a big problem, because for the show to work, we need to see what the other characters — like Sophia’s best friend, Annie (Ellie Reed), and her maybe-boyfriend, Shane (Johnny Simmons) — see in her. Neither Ms. Cannon nor Britt Robertson, who plays Sophia, is able to make it apparent.

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Ms. Cannon’s strategy appears to be to foreground Sophia’s vulnerability and self-hatred — after episodes of boorishness or violent anger, she’s liable to loudly ask herself why she’s such a jerk. It’s another realistic touch, but it doesn’t make us care any more about her. Ms. Robertson convincingly portrays Sophia’s defensiveness and irritating energy, but there’s a pinched, limited quality to her performance. Sophia needs charisma, and Ms. Robertson hasn’t found it.

The bigger issue may be the disconnect between the part of “Girlboss” that wants to be a character study and the part that needs to be a conventionally entertaining series. The roots of Sophia’s personality are addressed briefly, in vague and heavily clichéd terms (blame the parents). Otherwise her thorniness sits uncomfortably inside a stylized comedy that’s equal parts oddball and striving for the outrageous.

(The tech-business side of the story, in which a series of epiphanies takes Sophia from unemployed boho to eBay seller to e-commerce mogul, feels about as savvy as the copy of “Starting an eBay Business for Dummies” that Sophia shoplifts.)

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As she demonstrated in “Pitch Perfect, ” Ms. Cannon can write a funny line and sketch in an appealing character, and a number of performers benefit from this in small, spiky roles: Jim Rash as a vintage-clothing store owner, Norm MacDonald as a security guard, Melanie Lynskey as an eBay rival, Louise Fletcher as a curmudgeonly neighbor. They’re all likable, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

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A version of this article appears in print on , Section C, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: Likable’s O.K., but Nasty’s Chic. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe