Tiny Furniture

I saw Tiny Furniture this afternoon at BAM.

It is a very smart, bittersweet film about a girl who just graduated college coming home to her successful mother in Tribeca and trying to figure things out.

She is pudgy, and kind of schlubby, yet charmingly self-possessed in an oddly insecure way. I know that doesn't make sense, self-possession and insecurity, but this character has both, which endeared her to me and helped me respect her, even as she endured humiliation.

The dialogue was fabulous, very funny and awkward, and the characters were drawn with a delicious and observant wit -- everything felt real and true and was never boring.

Weirdly, there was a not unpleasant and vaguely intimate stiltedness to the acting which took some getting used to. When I came home I read this article on the filmmaker Lena Dunham (who wrote, directed and stars in the movie). Suddenly the woodenness made sense: Dunham is not an actress, and her real life mother and sister play themselves. Tiny Furniture is very personal to begin with, and has a very touching way of portraying this somewhat unique family. The personal quality takes on an entirely new resonance, however, when you realize that the family is being played by actual family members and the piece is largely autobiographical...