REVIEW: ‘Tiny Furniture’
“Listen, if you’re lonely you could come to my house and we could take an Ambien and watch ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ or ‘Christiane F.’ or something…”
Lena Dunham may not have invented Sad Sack Indie filmmaking, but she certainly has provided us with a new reigning champ. Until the next one comes along, at least.
Dunham, who wrote and directed “Tiny Furniture,” also plays Aura, a recent college graduate who moves back home with her art-photographer mother Siri (Laurie Simmons, Dunham’s actual mother) and her snotty, beloved younger sister Nadine (played by Dunham’s real-life sister Grace). Aura doesn’t really fit in at her mother’s home anymore, if she ever did: the dynamic is always uncomfortable, even in quieter moments when Siri seems to placate Aura’s frustrations with an impossibly straight-faced attitude as if she were a small child, possibly from different parents. With not much in the way of wise counsel and even less forward momentum, Aura isn’t exactly certain what her life is all about, or what she wants to do with it.
While Aura awaits the arrival of Frankie (Merritt Wever), her best friend from college with whom she plans to eventually share an apartment, she meets a group of carefree and fairly inert characters. Childhood friend Charlotte (Jemima Kirke) plays like a too-cool-for-the-room slacker who attends gallery openings and gives amateur tattoos, yet at the first sign of anyone else getting Aura’s attention she slinks away, exasperated. YouTube sensation Jed (Alex Karpovsky) makes videos as “The Nietzchian Cowboy” when he’s not slumming it in Aura’s home or “meeting with the networks.” And Keith (David Call) is a sous chef at the hip eatery where Aura has gotten her first job; Keith promises bad-boy rebellion, but only when he can get away from his nagging girlfriend.
Aura is a heavy-set, not unattractive young woman who, if she could stop whining and show some initiative, might be a fun date or actually forge a creative path of her own to steer clear of her mother’s weird shadow (mom’s oeuvre consists of photos of miniature furnishings, often centered around Nadine’s feet). And “Tiny Furniture” is so stacked with mopey/quirky characters (who do very little) that it would be almost intolerable if not for its frequently smart and clever dialogue, which often points up the characters’ many miserable facets and failings:
“I studied film theory, which I guess I liked.”
“On my resume under ‘skills’ I put ‘has a land line’.”
The dialogue is also the source of the film’s steady, low-key humor:
“One time, I saw him on a crate of onions reading ‘Austerlitz,’ so he’s really literary.”
“Do you have the same sense of entitlement as my daughter?” “Oh, believe me, mine is much worse.”
And when “Tiny Furniture” is amusing and droll, it works just fine as long as you have no greater expectations. But it is by no means a laugh-a-minute comedy or a piercing drama. It is a rather substantial first film, and 24-year-old Dunham stands to make some impressive work in the future if she can get a little more life experience under her belt, and possibly look beyond her family and home for cast and settings. “Tiny Furniture” does have a sharp look, but is very limited in what it shows us. My hope is that Dunham will live a bit, come back and make her second film with the same inventiveness and clever voice she uses here, only with slightly more expansive themes.
