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THE WAYS IN WHICH TINY FURNITURE IS BETTER THAN MOST INDIE MOVIES ABOUT 20’SOMETHING HIPSTERS
We were supposed to have seen Tiny Furniture when it came out, but somehow it got away from me so I just caught it finally this weekend on Netflix.
On paper, it is exactly the same movie as 40,000 other low budget movies about 20’somethings struggling to adjust to life in New York City. But instead of completely hating it, I really enjoyed it. Much to my shock.
I’ve been trying to break down the reasons why, and here is what I’ve got:
• The whole movie was carried by a genuine awkwardness, not the faux manufactured awkwardness that you usually get in these movies which is generally Zany + Thriftstore + marijuana = awkward.
• The characters for instance are genuinely awkward and unpolished types, not supermodels wearing knit caps, fitted t-shirts and giant glasses playing adorkable.
• There is a real ambiguity to the film’s message and perspective. The tone of these films is generally: we’re screw-ups but come on, we’re so much cooler than anyone else on the screen. There is none of that smugness here. Aura is lost and slightly out of control and there is nothing attractively outlaw about her struggle. She’s not actually “right” in her flailing, she is just finding herself.
• The other films of this genre tend to tip their hands with their directing style, adding in every possible shakycam moment, goofy angle, blurry naturalistic lighting. The result is that it feels like a movie not just about the lost artist character but actually made by that character, so that whatever lip service the film may give to pretending to see through the character’s self-justifications and entitlement, you always know where the film really stands. It is hipster filmmaking about hipsters, for hipsters that never lets you forget there are hipsters at the helm here. And ultimately the effect of all that is to keep you from looking too close at the thinness of the story or the vacuity of the characters. Pay no attention to the man in front of the curtain, those films say.
• Tiny Furniture instead plays it stylisitically straight. No jigglycam. No weird lighting or Antonioni-homaging silent vignettes. Just tells the story and lets you get to know the characters, just like the good old days, and let’s you decide for yourself what you think of them.
• The supporting cast is perfectly cast and totally believable in their roles and again, don’t just look like a bunch of slumming catalog models. They are uniformly hilarious while completely believable and recognizable, without a single true caricature in the bunch.
The Rushfield Babylon Recommendation: Definitely worth a Netflix stream
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