RARE FILM: Tiny Furniture (2010) Dir. Lena Dunham

Director, Star & Writer, Lena Dunham, is simply a genius and modern day heroine

With big wins at SXSW in 2010, this coming of age, heavily frank, partly autobiographical, indie feature is a charming, hidden gem. Film4 acquired this film in 2012 and it was only released in a handful of cinemas last year. The film grabbed the attention of the key bosses at HBO soon after it's showcase at SXSW, soon after, Dunham was granted a TV deal for her highly acclaimed, award winning series, Girls.

The plot: Recently graduated from college, Aura, returns to her mothers swish apartment, attempts to find a job, runs into old friends and manages to find herself in awkward situations with men. Starring Lena Dunham's real life mother and sister, Tiny Furniture is brutally candid and feels more like a Woody Allen film if he was a girl in his twenties.

Not catering to everyone's taste, Tiny Furniture struts around comically, dancing around with the woes of the white middle class. Post-college yet not quite prepared for the real world, Aura is doing a lot of reflecting. Her actions throughout the film reflects the current generation of twenty, something year old's; The loss of direction in one's career, the overriding sense of entitlement, the intensity of female friendships and the numbness towards sex and relationships. 

Hipster friends, Aura & Charlotte - Gallery sequence

Tiny Furniture is an extremely funny film because it lacks pretense. Aura's melodramatic interactions with her sister and mother to her conversations with hipster, extrovert friend, Charlotte (played by Girls star, Jemima Kirke) is both sincere and very similar to real life interactions with loved ones. It's quite difficult not to warm to the characters with lines such as;

                                                                                                                           

                                    Aura's friend: "..Good to see you too, you look so pretty!"

Aura: "Oh are you serious? I feel like this outfit just screams: I've been living in Ohio for three years, take me back to your gross apartment and have sex with me"

Dunham's refusal to get all dolled up for the camera is one of the strongest aspects to the film, the audience is seeing a completely new representation of a woman on screen. Not only is Dunham curvaceous, she has no hesitation revealing her body throughout the film, standing in her childish pajamas with just her underwear on, it appears she is not only a modern day feminist, she's also highlighting the difficulty of being in your twenties; Not quite ready for adulthood yet desperately trying to understand and mold into it. 

More on Dunham:

Born and raised in New York City to two artists (Carroll Dunham and Laurie Simmons) Dunham attended  Oberlin Liberal Arts College where she graduated in Creative Writing in 2008.

Having always had a passion for making short films, Lena Dunham nabbed best narrative feature at SWSX festival in 2010, her career skyrocketed since then.

NB: If you've fallen in love with Lena Dunham as much as I have, check out  'British Biscuits' - The Delusional Downtown Diva's below: 

AND

Click HERE for a great interview with her in GQ magazine.