A visually pleasing release; despite a somewhat light script...

Tiny Furniture is Lena Dunham’s first outing as a director working with professional producers and paid crew. To date, Dunham has developed a successful footing with shorts and web-based film projects, but this offering - which has just released in the UK - has received critical praise at the SXSW film festival two years ago and been selected to appear at a number of international film festivals.

I often feel that someone who writes, directs and performs the star role in their production either has control issues or is incredibly narcissistic. However, this may be one of those few causes for justification. The story - which is, on the face of it, a typical ‘Coming of Age’ experience - is a tale of a twenty-something graduate who has returned to their family nest, a split level apartment in the swanky Tribeca district of New York owned by a successful single mother photographer. Dunham’s character Aura, who Dunham based ‘loosely’ on herself, feels neglected and disillusioned with her life and its prospects. Quite the opposite of Dunham herself, who has been prodigious indeed with her work in independent film making and writing.

It’s not you, it’s me

I can’t help but feel a sense of misogyny with Dunham’s casting of her Mother and sister in their respective roles. That can be forgiven, however, with such raw exposure of the characters lives within the actual Dunham family home. Certainly knowing the background of the film tinted it with an uncomfortable feeling of comparison between the characters, and their relationships and situations, with those of the actual Dunham girls and their mother. The relationship between the two sisters and their mother had stresses that, while being obviously different to their real relationship, did make me wonder more about what these people were really like, rather than concentrating on the characters and the story itself. Saying that, upon reflection, maybe this is more of a personal problem for me, rather than a weakness of the feature.

The script, I felt, would make a great book - it’s fast, funny and very clever. Clever to the point of being almost Woodey Allen-like. That might get me some shouts from some corners of the film critics recesses, but I felt Dunham had included a beat and depth reminiscent of Allen’s characters; wallowing in their own revelation and acceptance of their flaws. There is that certain inwards on the self and situation and the humour of such realisation of life’s unstructured and unfathomable reason.

Keeping in mind that Tiny Furniture is a film about a New Yorker in New York, it perpetuates the Allen-esk theme of picking out aspects of NYC life and it’s pace. There’s recurring motives of Aura’s self abasement throughout the film - her final year project put onto YouTube of her standing in a fountain, and brushing her teeth in a bikini just two fine examples.

As for Dunham, there's more than a passing resemblance to Toni Collete in Murial’s Wedding and Tiny Furniture sometimes has that same feel... but without the transformational aspects of Murial and her friends. The central character of Aura can at times loose focus in terms of driving the narrative and involving us in her life. That engagement comes more from her friends and ironically our observation of the rather awkward relationship she has with the people around her.

Humour is found throughout this film in sharp, pithy dialogue and in some subtly visual scenes. The supporting friend character of Charlotte is played by the promising Jemima Kirke who feels the most comfortable on screen and has some great withering looks as the worldly-wise young thing.

Amongst the wannabe, New York intellectual references are some points which I would have liked expanded, such as Aura’s pseudo boyfriend's comedy act called the Nietzschean Cowboy, which he tries to promote on YouTube. It’s either straight lame or amusing because it’s both lame and ridiculous, but it appealed to me, to the point that I had hoped to actually find it on YouTube. I looked and the ‘Western yee-ha thinker’ was not to be found - a shame, as it could have been a nice bit of viral marketing.

Picture the scene

It’s interesting to note that Lena Dunham’s mother is the internationally renowned photographer/artist Laurie Simmons who plays Aura’s mother Siri, who is also a successful photographer with... model furniture. Simmons has herself been behind the camera, directing The Music of Regret staring Meryl Streep, and is married to Carroll Dunham, a painter; safe to say it's a family project then.

There's no doubting this is a very creative and intellectual family, but I felt that all that cleverness and artistry sometimes got in the way of the narrative pace. Scenes were well composed, but they are often flat and more akin to a moving photograph being carefully staged; great composure for a shot but then that composure feels too static, making an awkward tension amidst the characters that I wasn’t sure was always intentional.

Those long-takes also made it difficult to really get facial emotional feedback from characters. This may also be, in part, due to those long shot scenes not having much camera movement. That, combined with the occasional off-beat dialogue delivery, could become distracting at times.

Girl power?

Tiny Furniture is not a film of young adult discovery, more a film of realisation of the realities of life for Aura, even if she does not quite see what those realities are. I could see this film being more successful on the stage rather than on screen because of the content of the script, which came across as being competent in dialogue but perhaps lacking on  narrative story with a conclusion.

However, Tiny Furniture is great start for a young woman bound with talent and promise, along with her fellow crew.

Verdict

A script that shows promise with moments of good acting, real characters and good visual composition, Unfortunately, issues with timing and the occasional feel of a brat-pic let this otherwise enjoyable flick down.

UK Release Date: March 30th 2012
Directed by: Lena Dunham
Produced by: Alicia Van Couvering & Kyle Martin
Distributed by: Independent

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