Tiny Furniture (2010)

Aura (Lena Dunham) would like you to know that she’s having a very, very hard time. Of course she is. Anyone familiar with Dunham and her hit series Girls (2012) would know that one thing she is very good at is writing and playing characters who are hard done by, albeit quite privileged.  This is not to say that she doesn’t write interesting characters, but it’s hard to feel like you’re not watching one long episode of the aforementioned television show (or that you’re watching episode after episode of Tiny Furniture, depending on the order you’ve seen them in).

Aura has just finished her masters at college in Ohio and moves back in with her highly successful artist mother Siri (Laurie Simmons) and her intelligent but somewhat bratty younger sister Nadine (Grace Dunham). While happy to have a degree under her belt, she is in an awkward stage of limbo where she’s not quite sure which direction she’s headed. While she says she’s happy to be back at home, she also feels like an intruder, disconnected from her family.

You’ll see a few familiar faces in Aura’s longest and most eccentric friend Charlotte (Jemima Kirke) and the wanky Jed (Alex Karpovsky), a man who has ‘success’ on YouTube as the ‘Nietzschean Cowboy’. Charlotte finds Aura a mundane job as a day hostess, taking reservations at a local restaurant. It is there she meets Keith (David Call), a sous chef who seems to be cute and interesting, but who turns out to be an absolute loser who ditches her as soon as he gets some Vicodin and less than average sex in an outdoor pipe.

Very much a coming of age narrative, as you can imagine, this low budget film is all about the small details, the writing and the incredibly nuanced characters. The plot doesn’t really go anywhere, but that’s okay as we are merely privy to a window of Aura’s life where she’s not a teenager anymore, but a few steps away from becoming an adult.

Aura and her family, played by her real life mother and sister, are all very real. It’s hard to know how much of their interaction is scripted, but it definitely works. There are countless quirky references and witty exchanges between the characters that will keep you entertained. While it might not be for everyone, Dunham has undoubtedly created a winning formula encapsulating the frustrations and grievances of the youth of today.

★★★★