Tiny Furniture (2010)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Absolutely Fantastic

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The characters in Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture are the kind that mistake the phrase "eight grade crying" for "integrated grinding," used in the context of describing a local dance. They are the kind of people who seem to have quite a bit to be thankful for - very nice homes/apartments, possessions that make people envious, lovely outfits, and more - but scarcely seem to recognize that and just go ahead and direct their attention to the first problem on their mind; one in particular is quoted that another spends a day "watching Rachel Maddow, eating coconut-macaroons and laying on a heating pad." They are also the kind of people who hit their friend with a wooden spoon in what seems to be a playful manner when they are legitimately angry at that same person. These are likely some of the most eclectic people ever committed to film.But Dunham commits them and drags them along in a tired and often boring array of archetypal, indie-situational comedy that never seems to be interesting enough to become invested in or relatable or believable enough to take seriously on a personal level. I almost feel that the people who look up to this film now - post-college kids and twentysomethings trying to latch on to a specific direction in life - will look back on this film in maybe twenty years and smirk and perhaps hide their face at the characters' naivete and almost disturbingly ungrateful attitude.The film is centered around Aura (Lena Dunham), who returns home from her liberal arts college to her mother's loft, which serves as her studio for her art. Aura majored in film studies and has no particular direction in life, and is caught in the middle of two men while trying to find motivation to even get up in the morning. The two men are pretty basic caricatures, much like herself - Jed (Alex Karpovsky), who has achieved moderate internet fame thanks to his Youtube videos and Keith (David Call), who works at the same restaurant Aura does.Right off the bat, these characters seem to be nothing more than vessels spewing cute phrases that are a cross between directionless collegiate talk and a product of screen writing quirkiness. Despite Dunham approaching this topic with the mindset to capture this point in people's lives with a sense of authenticity. But just like that, everybody here feels inauthentic and quirky to the point of being barely able to function. Everything, from their moments to their speech to their speech-patterns, seems to be meticulously laid out and almost robotic, so as nothing is natural and almost exists as this artificial dream world.Consider the scene where Aura and Jed have sex in a thin, tight metal pipe in the middle of the street in what is one of the most awkward and damning scenes I've seen in a while. There's no particular wit or humor in a scene like this. It's only awkward and serves as yet another moment when Dunham seems to be concocting a long line of eccentric events in the film for the sole purpose of having eccentric events take place.Then there are scenes like the one where Aura throws an all out temper-tantrum at her mother in a scene that is nothing but whiny in tone and only adds to the unlikability of its characters. This scene, however, is still a bold act on Dunham's behalf because she's unafraid to show her characters in two separate lights, or even make a stern note of the distasteful acts she commits. Yet by the time we start seeing this unlikable side to the characters, Tiny Furniture hasn't given us much to really like or appreciate about the characters, so by the time these aspects are introduced there's nothing for us to remind ourselves that these characters are somewhat decent people.I suppose by definition of technicalities, Tiny Furniture is considered a mumblecore film, for it has a heavy focus/attachment to its characters, makes an attempt at naturalistic dialog (by Dunham's definition not mine), and rather low-budget production values that use color as a way of disguising their cheapness. Dunham and another mumblecore filmmaker I have a great fondness for, Joe Swanberg, seem to do a lot of similar things from infusing their films with the likes of uniquely characters to focusing sights on their sexual adventures; the difficulty is stating why one does it better than the other. Maybe it's because Swanberg's approach seems to be catering to a wider demographic where you don't need to be a part of the characters' specific group in order to like or understand them. In Tiny Furniture, it seems the only way to have any kind of positive feeling towards these characters is if you have similar circumstances to them and, with the way Dunham has drawn these vapid and often contemptible people, I doubt a great many people have.Certain parts of Tiny Furniture work - the framing is top-notch and tightly-formatted, giving the sense we know exactly what Dunham wants to include and exclude in the shot and, on occasion, Dunham stages some strong monologues. Regardless of how I feel about Tiny Furniture, there's little denying that Lena Dunham will be a central figure to monitor with the popularity of indie film along with her HBO show Girls. Like it or not, Dunham has now been billed as "a voice of her generation" so much now that she (a) knows it and (b) will continue to produce films that stay true to her specific style. How you'll feel about this statement will differ. I just believe I'm stating a fact.Starring: Lena Dunham, Alex Karpovsky, and David Call. Directed by: Lena Dunham.

I enjoyed this film so much that I felt compelled to make an IMDb account just to review it. I am quite surprised to find that so many reviewers found this film cliché, or described the main character as narcissistic and naive. I thought this film was incredibly sophisticated. While at face-value the plot is minimal, the subtext is incredibly compelling. Lena Dunham's character is trying to find her place in a society that is incredibly superficial, lonely, and depraved. When she turns to her sister and mother for compassion and tenderness she finds much to be desired, and this is what encourages her to seek validation in all of the wrong places. She is by no means naive and it would be simplistic to describe her character as lazy or narcissistic. For me, this film serves as a magnificent cross-section of what young adult life is like today: the alienation one experiences, the deep desire to find one's niche when there are so few open doors and so few means of finding genuine human connection. This film was a challenging and absolutely beautiful exploration of female belonging.

TINY FURNITURE by Val Turner 15 Cert, 119 min; director; Lena Dunham; Starring Lena Dunham, Laurie Simmons, Grace Dunham, Jemima Kirke.Lena Dunham wrote and directed this smart comedy drama about a media student, Aura, who after graduation returns to the family home in New York, unemployed, adrift, overweight and plain. It is obvious from the thread of conflict that runs through the film, that her successful photographer mother (Laurie Simmons) and pretty intelligent sister (Grace Dunham) see Aura as an intrusion in their perfect, trendy life.As Aura drudges from one scene to another, allowing her self-centred friend Charlotte (Jemima Kirke) possible boyfriends Jed (Alex Karpousky) and Keith (David Call) wipe their feet as they walk all over her, you find yourself willing her to get a grip and take control.In truth nothing really happens in the film and a standard beginning, middle and end structure does not apply. However, despite the fact that it feels that Aura is swimming through a bowl of blancmange, this is her life and it is this sludge that holds you steady waiting for something to happen. There are poignantly funny moments particularly the conflict between mother v daughter and sister v sister and Aura's pathetic attempt to get herself into the arty scene by posting a Youtube film of her in her undies washing her teeth in a fountain.In fact Dunham spends as much time as possible in her underpants and baggy shirt, which does not flatter her unflattering shape. It is this self-effacing, actually closer to self-deprecating characteristic of Dunham that should feel refreshing but actually she does scrub up quite well and you are left irritated with her for not making the best of what she has.The film was named as Best Narrative Feature at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival. It also won Best First Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards and New Generation Award by the LA Film Critics Association along with nominations for Best Cinematography and Best First Feature. Recognition has catapulted this young writer/director into the limelight and has since produced "Girls" which on the face of it appears to be a sequel to "Tiny Furniture" given that Dunham and her friend Kirke play very similar characters. It's not and you do wonder how much the audience can take of this hapless young woman.Tiny Furniture is poignant and in these present economic times the story will resonate with graduates in similar positions. Perhaps they should all do what Lena Dunham has done and make a docudrama which may suck them out of the abyss and throw them into stardom.

By Maurice Jones 'Tiny Furniture' has a 'hipster' creed all over it by the look, which makes most people tray away from it. Myself being one of these people, I none the less decided to check it out as you can never always tell something just by the trailer and I heard Lena Dunham's life is as portrayed in the movie, so it wasn't necessarily a style choice, not that that's important.'Tiny Furniture' opens as you'd expect it too, down to the music. It unleashes a post 'Juno' independent film vibe that makes you wish more creative thought was put into this opening, however that's not the point to the film and if that is what Lena Dunham wanted to do based on reality, so be it.Immediately from the start you get an amateurish film making shot after shot, from which you start to feel as I did; how did Lena Durham even get her own T.V. show? The acting itself, is.... well, amateurish to say the least at first and once to get to meet Aura's friends some might not be able to get past the fact that everyone in the film looks dressed straight out of the 'Urban Outfitters' catalogue but this is not unbelievable or relevant. You soon realize that the spark of the film is not the style but the fact that the way the characters react to each other is quite real even to the point that the film allows you to figure out for yourself as to what Aura actually feels for her friends and family. It doesn't beat you over the head as to how to perceive each character but rather truly puts enough out there, and leaves you to put down your own slight possibility of who they are, kind of like figuring people out in real-life, which isn't easy to portray on paper. The film is also very aware of what the audience thinks or what the audience would do in certain situations. So, when you say to yourself, I hope this goes down this way because that's what would happen, it does. And with that I give Lena Dunham credit for being true to her audience self, therefore being a true movie fan and doing something realistic for the sake of logic and not for the sake of relating, which someone might misconstrued the movies point as. A movie like this is around to show that this reality is okay and exists, because as we all know, society imitates art. If you don't relate to this movie, it's probably because you're not in your twenties or you're less neurotic of a person but trust me the setting of the movie couldn't be less of the point. This is a different looking version of a too real reality of today's twenty-somethings.In the end 'Tiny Furniture' actually respects reality and what it has to offer as entertainment, avoiding emotional clichés, unlike the movie 'Young Adult' which involves many clichés, yet expects us to think it's different after it's all said and done. There are obvious problems with 'Tiny Furniture' but I've still haven't seen many movies like it, that respects the truth so much to allow it to play out as it does, that's why I like it, it's just straight up refreshing. To understand 'Tiny Furniture' you have to sit down and watch it in its entirety and see what happens, like life itself.