★★★
Tiny Furniture is yet another interesting indie film. Its bright, sharp cinematography won’t let
you break away from the visuals, and the film is strong on that level
alone. Lena Dunham puts her Aura before
the camera continually, and just as continually violates conventional images of
women in movies. Aura is heavy, she has
blemishes, and she doesn’t dress in an elegant or even flattering way. In fact, she’s sometimes just wearing quotidian
undergarments. She’s quite a contrast to
the 2001-like apartment of her mother, the whiteness of which makes objects
float on the screen, the natural beauty
of her sister Nadine and the glamor of her drug-rattled friend, Charlotte. Dunham’s cinematic close-up aesthetic gives
all of this a striking intimacy.
This intimacy complements the portrait of a woman that Tiny
Furniture develops. Aura is
transitioning from college to life, but she finds she has little to no guidance
or support. Men don’t help: Jed is more
interested in staying at her mother’s apartment than in having a relationship
with Aura, and Keith is more interested in having sex than a relationship. Aura and her sister lack intimacy, and Aura’s
mother is cold and narcissistic. Only
Charlotte is willing to extend a helping hand to Aura, and Charlotte’s is not a
direction Aura should go.
Tiny Furniture doesn’t have traditional storyline. Things happen sequentially, but nobody and nothing
grows, builds or changes in the film. Instead,
Dunham creates a striking portrait of a girl, in all her real femininity, who
needs to make a transition. The theme
and cinematography work hand-in-hand to evoke this particular moment in a
particular character’s life. It’s the
authenticity of Tiny Furniture that makes it so vivid and so worthwhile.
