MOVIE OF THE WEEK: Tiny Furniture

After hearing a lot about Lena Dunham's series "Girls" lately (good and bad), I thought I should check out her early film "Tiny Furniture". It was available on Netflix, so I thought I'd give it a shot, expecting the worst. To my surprise however, I really liked this film. Even more shocking was the fact that I actually saw little bits of myself in Lena Dunham's character Aura. The film basically follows Aura as she tries to figure out her life in those unsure months right after graduation. Without doing much research into the film, I could immediately sense that this was semi-autobiographical, which it is. The story is taken basically directly from her life experiences and she cast her real-life family, one of her actual friends and she even uses her own family home. This realism really plays out in the screenplay. The dialogue isn't quirky like other indie films, neither is it sharp and witty like an Aaron Sorkin film. It's just...normal. This proves to be both a blessing and curse. It certainly brings a sense of authenticity to the proceedings, but it almost makes it "uncinematic" (that's a word right?). The script doesn't allow for any memorable scenes or insightful monologues. Indeed, some of the characters in this are downright deadpan, almost to the point of being wooden (notably Siri and Jed). As a result, the monotone nature of the film takes away some of the entertainment value that helps to make great cinema. That being said, I was still very impressed by this effort. From my own experience, it truthfully portrays the angst of recent college graduates (especially those from private liberal arts colleges) dealing with the aftermath of the recession.