Tiny Furniture

(USA, 2010, 98 mins, HDCam — Frame Rate 29.97)

Producers: Alicia Van Couvering, Kyle Martin
Screenwriter: Lena Dunham
Cinematographer: Jody Lee Lipes
Editor: Lance Edmands
Cast: Lena Dunham, Laurie Simmons, Grace Dunham, Alex Karpovsky, Jemima Kirke, David Call, Merritt Wever, Amy Seimetz

Twenty-three-year-old writer-director Lena Dunham's frank, fearless, and painful autobiographical comedy stars Duncan herself as Aura, an awkward film studies grad who leaves the shelter of her Ohio art school after her hippie boyfriend leaves to seek his destiny. Back in Manhattan, she's stuck living with her successful artist mother and high-achieving, popular sister—played, bitingly enough, by Dunham's real life mom and sister Grace.

Intensely personal and utterly unsparing, Tiny Furniture reworks Welcome to the Dollhouse for an even more jaded generation. Dunham shows herself no mercy as her character desperately tries to get cool points with her snotty childhood friend, played by a hilarious Jemima Kirke, and a pair of seductive cads using her for drugs, food, and their own egos. Too smart for a ""why me‾"" whine, this miserably good film finds its heroine complicit in her own woe. Why else would she barge into her sister's party without pants‾

Dunham nails the anxieties of feeling unremarkable, but the bold, stylish movie she's made reveals the confidence and panache of a natural-born filmmaker.

Amy Nicholson

Expected to attend: Lena Dunham.

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