Tiny Furniture: Lena Dunham

Tiny Furniture is the kind of film that I hate having to review. On the one hand, it's a wonderfully composed, written, and acted film. Director Lena Dunham certainly has a fair amount of talent. But on the other hand, I have rarely encountered characters in a film that I have hated more. Don't misunderstand, my disdain for the characters isn't the same that I feel for, say, Hannibal Lector or Darth Vader. It isn't a hatred formed from an acknowledgment that they are evil and that they do wicked things. Instead, it is borne from a disbelief that these kind of people could ever exist. Allow me to explain. The film follows Aura, a recent graduate from a mid-west liberal arts college, who returns to her family's Tribeca loft. With no real idea of where to go next in life, she engages in affairs with two different men and gets into fights with her family. I guess that the film is an examination of how Aura's life has no purpose or direction. But I was distracted from what Dunham was trying to accomplish by the fact that all of the characters in her film were absolutely despicable. Her mother is an artist who admits that she has never done a fair day's work in her life. She spends her days going to parties and galleries and her nights in a Vicodin-fueled stupor. Her sister is, for a lack of a better word, a complete bitch. Even though she's still in high school, she acts like she's the center of the world. In one scene she has a party in their loft with 20+ students and treats Aura like a piece of crap when she asks them to turn their music down. The two men she sleeps with are scumbags. The first is a new-age hipster who makes his living doing youtube videos and mooching off Aura's hospitality. The second is a chef who hits Aura up for drugs and sleeps with her even though he has a girlfriend. I'm getting pissed off just writing descriptions of these characters. Am I supposed to admire them or hold them in high esteem just because they're "artists?" I really, really hate to say this, but after watching this film, I sympathize with Fox News conservatives who see liberal elites as the bane of society. These people do not deserve their wealth, respect, or lifestyles. And yet, despite my hatred for the characters, I have to admit that this is a well made film. So, screw it. I'll give it an average score. I don't ever want to think about this film, or its characters, again.

5/10