Tiny Furniture (2010)

Tiny Furniture 4 Out Of 5Tiny Furniture is a character driven dramatic feature about an unbiased peek that an unstable girl seeks for on every tiny aspect of her life. The methodology that it has grasped in order to carry on a conversation, is so rare and pure which makes it immensely pleasing to encounter. Addition to that, the weaving and build-up of each sequence is projected in here that helps viewer see through the characters and easily resonate with them. The emotions aren't manipulated and requested to be drawn out from the viewers which are selective in here and this being aware of, the makers are free from any commercial aspect of it. The premise guides the younger audience in their own language with high society issues and yet the stakes never seem to go lower which often does in such genre. And as much as the feature lures in the younger generation through its theme, its core concept lies on meddling with something that is at a certain point is for older generation too. It is short on technical aspects like background score and production and costume design, although is rich on the camera work which is beautiful in here. Dunham; the writer-director, is at its finest with her explicit writing skills and brilliant execution skills that connects frame to frame with the audience. Her performance isn't loud but subtle, whose impact does hit the viewers and moves them accordingly. Awareness of keeping the practicality involved in each sequences (for example, stuttering before speaking and multiple failed attempts to put a definite point on table), layered writing, three dimensional characters, pragmatic conversations and metaphorical cinematography are the high points of the feature that ups the ante of the game and helps it enter the major league. Tiny Furniture is bigger than it accounts for and doesn't serve all its cards up front on the table but allows you to work for it.

I honestly tried my hardest to enjoy this film, but I just didn't. I consider myself a fairly broad film watcher but this one was tough to get through. The plot was slow to unfold, the humor was dry, and "the pipe sex scene" was completely unnecessary.As a person in their twenties who is often categorized as a millennial, I vividly remember my days in 2009 when the after college disillusionment was starting to set in. The lead female character I found hard to identify with, and I doubt many of my peers find themselves in a pipe with a stranger having sex just because they are stuck in a rut and life after college has left them disillusioned. I will refrain from ever saying that I hate a piece of art because it is art and it will speak to someone in some unique way. I'm simply saying this film just didn't work for me.

Even as a fan of indie films and movies that are driven by character over plot, I found Tiny Furniture to be appallingly bad. The characters are all not only stereotypes but despicable people. The dialogue is as bad as the dialogue in The Phantom Menace. Absolutely nothing is learned by the characters, and if anything could be learned by the audience, it would be a brief, boring insight into the lives of very, very dull people.Aura, the protagonist is an entitled, self-pitying post-grad student who flounders awkwardly through bad choices and bratty behavior and passes it off as self discovery. Aura's mother fits every cliché of the rich, distant, oblivious parent who simultaneously fosters and disapproves of her daughter's bad habits. The men at whom Aura throws herself are the worst part of the film. These men are supposed to be presented to us as unique and deep--one is broke and a freeloader, but he makes YouTube videos in which he quotes Nietzsche while riding a rocking horse. The other is a cook who cheats on his girlfriend and only shows interest in Aura after she indicates she can get him pills, but--he reads novels and wears a fedora. These men take advantage of her in the most blatant ways possible, apparently without her noticing.However, it's hard to feel sympathy for Aura when people take advantage of her because she also takes advantage of others. She takes her mother's money, food, and wine without a thought and lies when confronted about it. She reads her mother's diary without permission and lets a man she just met live in her mother's bedroom while she's gone. Aura has one friend in the film who seems to truly care about her. And while Aura appears ready to do anything for her new friends who treat her like trash, she ignores, snubs, and drives away the one good friend.The plot plods through the mundane activities of Aura's days. The more mundane the activity, the harder she fails in completing it. She is constantly late for her job as a day hostess. She can't rouse herself to put on pants for half the film. She is often shot lying on the floor, even while carrying on conversations, babysitting, and showering. All in all, the film is about a lazy, self-indulgent child in the body of an adult who, for whatever reason, is unable to handle any measure of responsibility. Pretension and privilege drive the film, which seems meant to cater to the hipster/indie film crowd on the surface level, without the depth of many other films in the same genre. A depressing, cliché movie at best and an abomination at worst.

By Maurice Jones 'Tiny Furniture' has a 'hipster' creed all over it by the look, which makes most people tray away from it. Myself being one of these people, I none the less decided to check it out as you can never always tell something just by the trailer and I heard Lena Dunham's life is as portrayed in the movie, so it wasn't necessarily a style choice, not that that's important.'Tiny Furniture' opens as you'd expect it too, down to the music. It unleashes a post 'Juno' independent film vibe that makes you wish more creative thought was put into this opening, however that's not the point to the film and if that is what Lena Dunham wanted to do based on reality, so be it.Immediately from the start you get an amateurish film making shot after shot, from which you start to feel as I did; how did Lena Durham even get her own T.V. show? The acting itself, is.... well, amateurish to say the least at first and once to get to meet Aura's friends some might not be able to get past the fact that everyone in the film looks dressed straight out of the 'Urban Outfitters' catalogue but this is not unbelievable or relevant. You soon realize that the spark of the film is not the style but the fact that the way the characters react to each other is quite real even to the point that the film allows you to figure out for yourself as to what Aura actually feels for her friends and family. It doesn't beat you over the head as to how to perceive each character but rather truly puts enough out there, and leaves you to put down your own slight possibility of who they are, kind of like figuring people out in real-life, which isn't easy to portray on paper. The film is also very aware of what the audience thinks or what the audience would do in certain situations. So, when you say to yourself, I hope this goes down this way because that's what would happen, it does. And with that I give Lena Dunham credit for being true to her audience self, therefore being a true movie fan and doing something realistic for the sake of logic and not for the sake of relating, which someone might misconstrued the movies point as. A movie like this is around to show that this reality is okay and exists, because as we all know, society imitates art. If you don't relate to this movie, it's probably because you're not in your twenties or you're less neurotic of a person but trust me the setting of the movie couldn't be less of the point. This is a different looking version of a too real reality of today's twenty-somethings.In the end 'Tiny Furniture' actually respects reality and what it has to offer as entertainment, avoiding emotional clichés, unlike the movie 'Young Adult' which involves many clichés, yet expects us to think it's different after it's all said and done. There are obvious problems with 'Tiny Furniture' but I've still haven't seen many movies like it, that respects the truth so much to allow it to play out as it does, that's why I like it, it's just straight up refreshing. To understand 'Tiny Furniture' you have to sit down and watch it in its entirety and see what happens, like life itself.