Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Tiny Furniture

I saw Tiny Furniture last week and don't have time for a full review, but have to get in a quick rant about it off my chest. The gist of it is I loathed pretty much everything about this phony, gimmicky, masturbatory, self-conscious, lifeless, horribly written and poorly acted movie. The creative force behind Tiny Furniture is a privileged 24 year old named Lena Dunham who casts her real mother, sister and [probably] friends in the story and shoots it on the extreme cheap with DV cameras. Somehow, this woeful fraud of a movie has garnered critical praise, releases on a spate of art theatres across the nation and people claiming Dunham's a rising young filmmaker.  I obviously disagree with that assessment of her film and her as a filmmaker.

Like many of the micro-budget movies I've watched recently, Tiny Furniture is bland, under scripted and exasperating. The film feels more like a student project rather than a something that deserves to be seen by audiences in a theatre. This is just an exercise in youthful narcissism by a filmmaker who can't waste time growing older, maturing,  working on her ideas and becoming a more complete artist. No, like many younger people in the creative fields in 2011--whether they are writers, painters or filmmakers--they have to get their vision to the masses NOW. Many aren't ready for that and churn out undeveloped, unthought out crap that the myriad of internet hype machines fawn over in their hunger for fresh talent. Tiny Furniture is a perfect example of that. In the future, Dunham might have something to say about herself and the world instead of just wallowing in the endless, unabsorbing, hollow posturing that takes place in Tiny Furniture, but she isn't anywhere near that level at this point. This should have been a college project of Dunham's and never seen the light of day, but it did and will be in the running for the worst film I see in 2011.

8 comments:

Eva said...

What's the plot?

Joshua Blevins Peck said...

In my zeal to rag on the movie I forgot to even mention the plot at all! The writer/director casts herself in the lead as a recent college graduate of liberal arts school [Oberlin] and moves back home with her famous artist mother and sister [real life mother and sister]. She mopes around, whining about the state of her privileged life, either alone or with friends, often whilst not wearing pants [not sure why she chose to be trouser-less so much in this!]. And she tries her hand at minimum wage labor. To say this is lacking depth is the understatement of the year.

Eva said...

Hahahaha! When I saw this it unexpectedly made me burst out laughing while I had some beer in my mouth! It could have almost been as unelegant as the walking around without trousers, but I just about contained it. Sounds like a self-involved something alright. I have had quite a few chats with girlfriends about whether we walk around in our underpants when we're at home, even alone, and it seems pretty much no girl ever does. I'm sure there's a few daredevils out there, but everyone I talked to are like "ah no, I gotta have some pants on to relax, even around myself". I think trouser-less girls are a myth of movies.

Joshua Blevins Peck said...

SJ and I couldn't figure out why she was always taking her pants off and lounging around the swanky apartment she was living in. Maybe it was a symbol for the her sudden disillusion of youth?

Rumblefish said...

Hmm, well, I didn't love it as much as others have, but I do think that it was meant to be far more satirical than you think. I met Dunham, briefly, at SXSW the year this played and she seemed nice enough. If you take this seriously, then it is as annoying as you say. I think that everyone involved was supposed to be a grossly over-exaggerated version of themselves. They were meant to be nauseous and, I think, seen as whiny and entitled. On a light note, my friend Ben did visual effects (removing booms and stuff) on it! Go Ben!

Joshua Blevins Peck said...

I talked about that possibility [it was satire] w/ a couple of people who saw TF, but I don't think she meant it that way. I could be wrong of course, but I didn't read the film as satire. I just read it as a 24 year old [23 when it was made] who just took aspects of her own life and took it up a notch to make it more extreme or watchable. I don't think that's really satire. I wasn't impressed...which is the understatement of the year for any posts in 2011.

Anonymous said...

I hated almost everything about this student film. Why is this getting serious attention and nationwide play?

Joshua Blevins Peck said...

I swear I didn't leave the previous comment anonymously!