Tiny Furniture : Boys, Why the hate?

After a long, rainy evening of Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich I found myself stumbling upon this film around 4:30am. I watched without reading a synopsis, a review, or barely looking at the poster - putting in a great deal of faith that the good folks at Netflix had chosen well for me. And I have to say, in my opinion, they were right on the money this time.

As a 24 year old woman, soon to be college graduate, yet to become totally financially independent (though let it be noted I DO NOT live with my parents), I found this film to be a raw and honest depiction of the female experience at this age. And I'm beginning to wonder if this is precisely the reason I see so much hate for this film on these message boards.

I think perhaps, though it may be misguided intuition, that the majority of the poor reviews I've read have been written by men. And no offense to Ms. Dunham, who I think gave a strikingly real performance here, but it's just not that relate-able for men - of any age really. This is a girl power film, only cleverly disguised in a shroud of "mumblecore" or whatever the youngsters on the other thread were calling it. And there's nothing here that rang satirical in the slightest here either, to me. If you're within this demographic I strongly challenge you to not find your life in this movie (even down to the hum drum pipe sex). The girls know what I mean

Ladies?


***How am I not myself?***

call this film what u want, but IMO it was really one of the worst films i have seen in a while and yes im a guy. i mean wheres the plot??? its just a bunch of jarble and *beep* i thought it tried way too hard to try and be "hip" or "cool" ppl comparing this to woody allen are pathetic. woody can write better one liners than any piece of dialog from this entire film. sorry but this movie was beyond terrible and it being in the criterion collection pisses me off even more lol.
and there might b all the hate because there was not one single likable character in the film and it went absolutely nowhere.

I was watching this film thinking to myself "what is this film about?" all the way to the end. There was nothing interesting going on here. It was like watching surveillance video.

If this film is "a raw and honest depiction of the female experience at this age" then I weep for women of this age group.

The women were entitled whiny babies with wild mood swings. The men were hipster d-bags. The only character I liked was the hamster.

I'm so Excited that you're PISSED OFF that this is in the criterion collection! I know you'll never understand how you imposed all your feelings about this film on yourself with your "high standards", but go F@#! yourself anyway!

Holy *beep* this is in the criterion collection? What happened to the criteria? This is junk film. There was literally no plot point and fifty times when people said "like" in a sentence the way 12 year olds do. Wonder what about this made the criterion folks induct this into their collection. Just because it was shown at SXSW?

Maybe you're right.

I'm a guy. I liked the film, but it wasn't as good as I expected based on what I'd heard in the rave reviews. Aura just wasn't relatable at all to me. She came across as hugely self-absorbed and self-centered, and very immature for her age. She was a very unattractive person (I don't mean physically - Lena Dunham is not bad looking). I enjoyed the humor of the film and the relationship between Aura and her mother and sister. I loved Jemima Kirke's character.

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There are plenty of women directors who are a hell of a lot better than the overhyped Ms. Dunham (Katherine Bigelow for instance). Stop playing the gender card.

jane campion and debra granik are two more that come to mind that are light years ahead of dunham. and granik has only made 2 films(winters bones & down to the bone)

Campion! Forgot all about her. She's a great filmmaker. Sweetie, An Angel at My Table, and The Piano, all superb films.

Catherine Breilliat and Agnes Varda are also great filmmakers.

yess. the piano is a masterpiece! ive seen some of breilliats work also and she is indedd talented. also i forget her name, but the director that just did we need to talk about kevin is very good also.

Lynne Ramsay is her name.

Loved her first film, Ratcatcher. Her 2nd film, Morven Callar, wasn't as good.

Haven't seen the Kevin movie, but will.

In other words, there are far better female directors than Lena Dunham.

Terrible film. Lena Dunham has no talent. None, not a speck.








"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."

~Oscar Wilde

I deeply respect Katherine Bigelow, but in to be honest I get the impression the only reason she is popular is because her films are very similar to the majority of Hollywood films- just connect the underlying themes in her works.

Not to say a woman director has to make films about women, but if the industry plans on evolving, filmmakers need to branch out into stories that are rarely or have yet to be told.

Deepa Meeta and Louise Archambault come to mind. And to be clear, no all male directors are bad at portraying women either- say Almodovar. He's probably more about gender equality than Bigelow.

Karina Licursi ~

Other than mulholland_empire (first post only) and kaelcarp, everyone else seems to be talking around your point. They're talking about female directors, whereas you're talking about identification with the female experience.

I am male, and way out of the age group being depicted. I liked the movie, but I really disliked Aura. She seemed somewhat lost in life (which is OK for everyone at that age), and I was waiting for her to branch out on her own with Frankie, but instead she withdrew into her mother's apartment. That last act cemented her as being a spoiled entitled loser in my mind.

I don't think this is because I can't identify with the female experience, because I think a lot of females of Aura's age would not have done what she did in the end. If anything, I think you are selling females short if you think most of them would behave that way. (I actually think her final act is more typical of males her age than females.)

Aura reminded me a lot of Jaye in Wonderfalls, the difference being that Jaye was generally more expressive, and ultimately grew as a person, which Aura isn't and didn't. (The other difference is that I saw Wonderfalls 7 years ago, when as a younger man, I probably had more sympathy for these types of young lost characters.)

Yes, she's flawed. Yes, she's real/realistic. Yes, females can be immature at that age. However, none of that makes Aura likable (nor is it necessary that she be likable).

You're right that her character does not represent all women - that was my inference of what the original poster meant by the phrase "the female experience".

She doesn't have to be likable. That's why, in my post you're responding to, I wrote "(nor is it necessary that she be likable)". However, this unlikability may be why viewers find the movie/character unrelatable, an issue the original poster brought up.

BTW, back to the original post: in what way is this a movie about girl power ? If anything, it seems more like girl disempowerment.

You might appreciate Citizen Ruth, which has much more to do with unconventional girl power than Tiny Furniture. In CR, Laura Dern is totally not motherly, nice nor attractive, and she's highly unlikable (way more so than Aura). Yet, I don't think people complain about her character and that film. (Well, the people with myopic political views might, but who cares about them anyway ?)

I don't think it's Aura's unlikability alone that may turn viewers off. It's that, combined with her passivity, her poor choices, her seeming lack of self-respect (at least when it comes to men), and her wasting of her upper-middle class advantage. Unlikable, combined with 1 or 2 of these other traits, OK. Combined with all 4, a problem. And, the icing on the cake is that her character doesn't even "own" these traits, but almost seems to see herself as a victim. That's why I find the "girl power" label inappropriate.

And I think there would have been the same reaction to the character had Aura been male.

I agree that she's real, because I encounter many people like her in my line of work, and they are very tiring to deal with in large numbers.

Regardless, although I find Aura unlikable, I still liked the film, mostly because I was able to laugh at her, not with her.

This movie was totally empowering for girls/women, but not in the way that I think you mean, that is, the audience has to root for the loveable/likeable (ie. faultless) female protagonist, or if she's not really loveable/likeable she has to be tough *beep* in her bleak life. I'd like to say that this was simply a film about relationships between people who also happen to be women. But since we're still at the stage where any single film that has a predominantly female cast is either belittled as a "chick flick" or assumed/expected to be "empowering" for women, I can't. For Dunham to have tried her hand in an industry with few female directors and with few films which depict relationships between women in all their humanity (which means that we will hate them sometimes just as we sometimes hate everyone at some point in time in our own lives), this was totally empowering.

I didn't find Aura unlikeable either.

Yeah, I'm a guy but frankly I'm not only kinda tired of this kind of film but I'm also kind of the tired of this kind of defense of self indulgent films.

In my admittedly old-fashioned and limited view, I think good story telling finds something universal in the situations it presents. I think a real story teller is able to get an audience invested even if they don't share the same background as the characters in the film. I think art is about communication and if you're only appealing to an audience who is already in the know, you're preaching to the choir and not really communicating.

I've never been a fan of this kind of indie film. The kind where we follow a character who is just a stand-in for the writer/director and we see them drift from one relatively unfocused scene to the next. I find it lazy and self indulgent. The director doesn't seem interested in putting forth the effort to bring out what's profound or interesting about this story but would rather just say, "hey, here's some stuff that happened to me. Aren't I so likable and interesting?"

It doesn't matter whether or not I share the experiences of the writer/director. I find Tiny Furniture as tedious and self-indulgent as I do Stranger than Paradise or films where I do happen to indentify with the situation.

I don't think we should make excuses for bad movies simply because they happen to represent a place we are or once were in our lives. I think when a work of fiction is so self focused, it ultimately becomes a very extravegant form of masturbation and masturbating is something I think is best done in the comfort of one's own home and not on the screen.

I'd take a movie like Winter's Bone over a film like Tiny Furniture any day. I'm not a teenage girl living in hill country with a meth-dealer dad and a catatonic Mom but that film was amazing in it's ability to allow me, someone not familiar with this society, to become invested in the struggles of this young girl. It even managed to frame its story in an almost mythical way, further pushing the audience to take more away from it than just this very specific situation.

It's fine that the OT found something in the film that I didn't but I think it's more than a little condescending to dismiss other people's opinions because they happen to have a Y chromosome.

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I've never been a fan of this kind of indie film. The kind where we follow a character who is just a stand-in for the writer/director and we see them drift from one relatively unfocused scene to the next. I find it lazy and self indulgent. The director doesn't seem interested in putting forth the effort to bring out what's profound or interesting about this story but would rather just say, "hey, here's some stuff that happened to me. Aren't I so likable and interesting?

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Beierfilms, I completely agree with your post, but especially this paragraph. I feel like indie filmmaking, with new technology, has enabled so many young writer/directors to make ultra-low budget movies right out of film school. But instead of taking the time writing to craft a truly interesting plot, even if it is based on your own life, most seem to hastily just make an embellished autobiography of the last few years of their life and figure it'll pass off as "arty" and relatable to people like them.

The problem is the same problem found in social networking (especially Twitter), that NOT EVERYBODY'S ACTUAL LIVES ARE INTERESTING. Some people have experiences worth sharing on a massive scale, but most of what we actually live through isn't worth publishing for the masses. It feels to me that Lena Dunham's taking the old writing strategy of "write what you know" quite literally, and so far it proves kind of boring.

I'd compare watching Dunham's work with watching Sophia Coppella's work, in that basically all of Sophia's films have had an overall theme of, "Isn't it so sad and tough to grow up in extreme wealth and success?" I think this is why both filmmakers have always gotten very mixed reviews, because to most people the theme of "having every opportunity at my fingertips is such a bore" is pretty condescending. But that's just my opinion.

In my opinion, Dunham shows great promise as a director, but her writing, both in "Tiny Furniture" and "Girls", has not impressed me at all. I'd really like to see what she could do directing a film with a script written by someone else, so she can show she's got more than just one simple, niche style.

See, the idea that just because something isn't unusual enough to spark a lot of interest means it has no worth in being published just doesn't gel with me. I think that every piece of life is valuable. I would watch a well-done hour-and-a-half depiction of the life of any human being on the earth because I feel like there would be something to learn from it, even if it wouldn't get me super-excited or anything. I mean, I can understand that a lot of people wouldn't enjoy this film. But it's an INDIE film. I don't think it's supposed to be for every person on the planet, but some people on these boards seem to think that just because they hated it, then no one else can take anything from it, either.

It's Sofia Coppola. At least get someone's name right before criticising their work. Google. 5 seconds tops.

I'm a guy, and I loved this film, but I'm asexual and much more emotional than most of the other males I know. I can instantly understand why so many dislike the filmthere is nothing redeeming about Lena's character. No action performed by her in the second half of the film says anything positive about her character. She is inconsiderate. She doesn't know what she wants. Up until about a year ago I would have considered this movie worthless and the character worthless. However, I have recently come to accept some imperfections about myself, and after doing so I have realized that there is no such thing as a worthless human being. Aura is a troubled soul lost within a deep sense of impotence and a fear of the future. I think that people's dislike of the film is rooted not in its poor filmmaking/storytelling techniques, but because they don't like the result of the techniques. They don't like Lena. They don't feel sympathy for her and ultimately do not believe that she can come out of this a good, loving, effective human being. The final scene of the film asks the viewer to believe something that many are not. The level of hatred I've seen displayed, in my opinion, is actually a testament to the effectiveness of the filmmaking, because the viewers are so insistent against the story's sentiment, rather than indifferent.
Of course, many of the things Aura does in the film are unacceptablenamely, the disrespect she displays for her mother by drinking her wine and the way she treats her friend. But really, she is SUPPOSED to be a mess. Many of the harsher critics seem to believe that the writer created this character as a means of glorifying bad personality traits. That is not what is happening. By mirroring Aura's path against that of her mother when she was her age, Dunham wants to convey that *despite* Aura's despicable situation and personality traits, she can come out of it a well-formed and gracious human being. And that, I think, is a very admirable message. It calls us to look past what we've been taught heroic traits are and have trust that the universe can take care of us even when we're bad.

I absolutely despise this film, but I believe your analysis to be closest to what Lena was striving for.

I like the idea of Aura potentially becoming a fruitful, considerate, caring young woman, but that's asking the viewer to take a leap of faith. In the film, she demonstrates at no point that she's capable or interested in becoming that person.

You're asking the naysayers to be open to the POTENTIAL that she becomes a good person, but are you open to the just as likely possibility that she'll remain a horrible person? One who makes obvious mistakes, learns nothing, and expects to be held and told she's beautiful.

Men, generally speaking, are socialized to be problem solvers. The fact that this film 'goes nowhere' and has 'no resolution' is why I believe so many men hate it. In addition to that, women often like to vent about their problems, not in efforts to solve them, but just speak on them. I believe that to be a fundamental difference between many women and men and why they may view the film so differently.

This film is the result of a 24 year old being given access to $50,000 and being a female who wishes to spout about her perspective. Lena isn't a genius. She's no quirkier than the next New Yorker who went to a decent/above average school, she just hired people with the technical ability to keep her musings/self indulgent spouting from looking like a film school stroke fest. I chalk up the success of this film to a decent budget, a good director of photographer, cinematographer, editor and enough shooting days to make an actual film.

This film has the voice of a typical 24 year old. The real feat is that it was made from start to finish. Not Dunham. Sorry.

"Dunham wants to convey that *despite* Aura's despicable situation and personality traits, she can come out of it a well-formed and gracious human being. It calls us to look past what we've been taught heroic traits are and have trust that the universe can take care of us even when we're bad."

I like the spirit of the first sentence, but the latter one really turned me off. It reeks of Cinderella complex, and seems to absolve the person of any responsibility in their own improvement ("the universe can take care of us"). In fact, it's like a new age version of the religious hypocrites' thinking that they'll go to heaven even though they do evil things, just because they "believe" in Jesus.

Also, didn't the mother's diary entries indicate that she was living independently (of her own parents) ? Doesn't that suggest that Aura will face difficulties ahead since she chooses to stay dependent on her mother ? (I realize that her mother's final words indicate she is supportive of Aura, but is she to the point of being an "enabler" (in AA-speak) ?)

Well, I guess it's possible she could remain a "horrible person." But the thing is, I believe that humans never learn NOTHING from their experiences. The problem arises when they're too preoccupied with this anger or that fear. But I mean, in the worst-case scenario, she continues leeching off her mom until her mom dies and she's forced to get a job. I think staying off the streets will be enough motivation, then. But honestly, I think that if she lived without any pressure, she would quickly discover that she does have within her an earnest desire to work and would find some constructive outlet that improved the lives of others.

As for being an "enabler," I've studied codependency and I believe the problem is not when you're helping another person but when you're helping another person out of moral obligation when deep down you don't want to be doing it. This is just my personal opinion, but for as long as Aura's mother feels she wants to be there for her child, it will be a positive influence on Aura. But no longer.

When it comes to these issues, reading The Continuum Concept has shaped my mentality a lot. It's a writer's observation on these African villagers who are always working together, but they never force or even ask each other to do anything. One newcomer angrily refused to garden, for example, so another villager allowed the first villager's family to eat from his own garden. A few years later, the first villager started to garden because he realized there was nothing to fear about the situation, which allowed his true desire to work and provide for his family to come forth without any obstruction.

I think Aura earnestly does desire to go out and make something of herself but that she feels so much pressure from society to GET A JOB and be as amazing as her mother is that she gets intimidated into being nothing. While living with Frankie would have been the ideal situation, I feel like some time with home, IF she is patient with herself, and if she disbelieves the lie from society that she is an failure just because she is living there, she will eventually come out of it a strong and successful person. But hey, who knows?

if this is a girl power film then you must have a (bleep) opinion of yourself and other girls like lena (bleep)ham and probaly aspire to be a (bleep) just like that (bleep) piece of (bleep) show girls

For me, it was how incredibly self-indulgent it was. I couldn't even begin to care about these mumbly, selfish narcissists.

I haven't seen it yet, although I am keen to.
But, in the IMDb rating statistics, it has males as only giving the film .2 below the score of females.
Not very one sided there.
And also, they have given over double the amount of votes then females.

I'm a man, and I thought the film was great. However, it does look from other responses like you might be right in most cases: only one other male poster has said he likes the movie, and he described himself as "asexual" which I am not. I am heterosexual and am even a huge football fan, but at the same time I also once owned a foreign/indie movie rental business (until Netflix put me out of business).

I don't see my own life here, obviously; but I appreciate cinema that can give me insight into the lives of others.

I always think it is misguided to state that those who hate a film do so because of the demographics they belong to. Yes, I am a guy. Yes, I did not particularly care for this film. But that was not because I found that the themes only resonated with women. My problem was with Dunham's execution. She was a first time feature length filmmaker, and it showed. She didn't really have anything cohesive to say. She was stuck with an idea (an autobiographical work about her life) and thought that alone would carry her film. Maybe it would have worked better as a documentary?

Dunham could be a great filmmaker in the future, but Tiny Furniture should be viewed as a stepping stone rather than as a career defining work.

Cause they take a halfway decent concept and run it to the ground with bad dialogue, uncreative cinematography, and acting that feels more like people reciting from a script. There's no believability in any of these characters and the scenes don't connect, it feels like a random mess.

Seriously, I was recommend this POS. Never listening to that person again for film suggestions.

Stuff like this reminds me of "Movie Poop Shoot.com" from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

That's what I got from the trailer with the exception of a "halfway decent concept."

Is it that young, brainy women have lots of issues?

So do middle-aged men, but I guess we deal with it without the pretense of art.

I'm a guy, but I get what she was going through etc. However, can't we just equate the poor reviews to the fact that it's somewhat of a weak film?

I don't know it's a boy/girl thing, i think its a pathetic/not pathetic thing, i cant relate to people who have such an inflated sense of their own worth while simultaneously being a completely mediocre human being incapable of dealing with the smallest problems in their life.

If there were a verb meaning to believe falsely, it would have no first person, present indicative

Might have something to do with the fact that it's a dull, sollipsistic mess made by a delusional, self-absorbed twit who has absolutely nothing intelligent or interesting to share with the world.

Not really hate, but it's like "Sex and the City" with a fugly post-teen Not that funny.

Shoot, I'm a guy and I'll proudly admit that I'm an avid Girls fan. I loved Tiny Furniture and I have a HUGE crush on Grace Dunham (Grace, if you're reading this, shoot me a message next time you're in Seattle!). Anyways

Tiny Furniture was brilliant for exactly what it wasLena's attempt to tell the story of a girl coming home from college struggling to wriggle her way back into the flow of things while also trying to figure out who she is and what her purpose in life is. For the people who didn't understand this film it clearly wasn't made for you. The premise is so ridiculously simple that if you can't figure it out, refer back to my earlier statement and go watch something else.

As a guy, you're correct, I wasn't able to relate to Aura's character very much also because I'm still a sophomore in college but I did find myself wild fascinated with Aura's character. I was so enthralled by her personality and couldn't wait to see how the film was going to play out. And it delivered.

I think it is more the younger guys (chronologically or emotionally) that are leaving the hate comments. I have seen a few that almost made me cringe because of the pointed misogynistic tone. Clearly these men have issues that they need to deal with.

I don't see Tiny Furniture as a "girl power" film. If Aura had pulled herself out of the rut she was in, and moved in with Frankie, then maybe the word "power" would apply.

This film was more of an essay on what it's like to be young, female and power-less. Clearly her self esteem was at a low point. She is overweight and taking a ribbing for it on youtube. The relationship at college didn't turn out the way she thought it might. And to top it off she is just out of university with a degree that isn't going to be very useful in the near future.

The pipe sex was brilliant, especially the way it was placed right after the scene where Aura further distances herself from the only real friend she has just so she can hook up with an unavailable man. When he pushes her head down and you hear him saying "suck it" followed by 20 seconds of intercourse, I couldn't help thinking how true to real life this really is. I wanted to yell to Aura "you deserve better", but of course that is something she must demand for herself.

The ending when she reconnects with mom was sweet and, I think, appropriate.

BTW, I'm a man.

I'm a guy and relate to this movie, and GIRLS.

*Nyan Cat, LGBT Rainbow of Infinity!

I gave it the benefit of the doubt, simply because it was released by The Criterion Collection, and they had never steered me wrong, in hundreds of films that I had watched from that. Being a supporter of films made both by new filmmakers and women filmmakers, I was especially excited. I want to be succinct, because already 99 minutes of my life were wasted by this monstrosity, and I don't want to waste any more of it on this deranged filth; also I was raised to have grace and mercy on everything that I do. There were hundreds of glaringly awful aspects to the film, and it boasted complete artistic insincerity and indulgence. It is clearly, and by far, the worst film in the Criterion Collection, and should never have made it there in the first place. There are many, far more talented actors, writers and filmmakers out there that deserve the prestigious honour. I only post in the sincere statement that if anyone appreciates art or cinema in the slightest, avoid this pathetic waste of valuable resources at all costs. Sincerely, William