In “Catherine Called Birdy” director Lena Dunham leaves her best-known locale, the gritty streets of “Girls” era Brooklyn, New York, behind in favor of medieval England. Thematically, however, she is walking the same path.
Based on the 1994 novel of the same name by Karen Cushman, the movie follows 14-year-old Lady Catherine (Bella Ramsey), the unruly daughter of a cash-strapped nobleman, as she works to foil her father’s attempts to marry her off to a rich suitor.
Set in a thirteenth century English village that Catherine’s father Lord Rollo of Stonebridge (Andrew Scott) has allowed to sink deeply in debt as he lives the high life, “Catherine Called Birdy” sees the strapped for cash Rollo put his daughter up for auction to the highest bidder. “You’re my daughter,” he says. “If I say that you shall be married, than married you shall be.”
Trouble is, Catherine, who has witnessed six of her mother’s troubled pregnancies, wants nothing to do with marriage and childrearing. She is more interested in the things that any thirteenth century teen might enjoy.
“My truest passions are avoiding my chores,” she says. “Critiquing my father’s horrible swordplay. Disrupting cottage raisings. Causing mischief in the village. And listening through doors I should not listen through.”
She uses her wiles to avoid the altar, finding cunning ways to humiliate her suitors. One by one she scares them off, until Shaggy Beard (Paul Kaye), a wealthy older man who enjoys her manipulations, comes along. “Would I choose to die rather than be forced to marry?” she says. “I do not think either option appealing, or fair.”
Ripe with bawdy humor filtered through Dunham’s feminist sieve, “Catherine Called Birdy” is a period coming-of-age story that, despite the corsets on display, has a modern sensibility. Much of that is due to Dunham’s script, which balances the humor with empowerment, but the real sell job here comes from Ramsey.
In a performance that reveals strength and vulnerability alongside comedic and dramatic chops, the former “Game of Thrones” star not only looks like she just stepped out of a medieval Walter of Durham painting, but she also embodies Catherine’s rowdy spirit.
“Catherine Called Birdy” sags in the middle, but what it lacks in pacing, it makes up for in pathos and charm.
Frank and provocative, “Sharp Stick,” the new film written and directed by “Girls” creator and star Lena Dunham, returns to familiar ground with a sexual coming-of-age story.
Kristine Froseth stars as 26-year-old Sarah Jo. A sexually inexperienced woman who had a hysterectomy at age 17, she still lives at home with her mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and wannabe Instagram influencer sister (Taylour Paige). She scraps by, babysitting for Zach, son of Josh (Jon Bernthal) and Heather (Dunham). Heather is pregnant, and Josh has a wandering eye, which happens to land on the flirty Sarah Jo.
Their ”affair” culminates with a tryst on the floor of a cramped laundry room, setting Sarah Jo off on a journey of sexual discovery involving lots of pornography, a fixation on adult film star Vance Leroy (the ornately tattooed Scott Speedman) and carefully organized, random “educational” hook-ups.
“Sharp Stick” reverberates with echoes of the frankness of “Girls” and the edgy work of filmmakers like Larry Clark and Harmony Korine, but never rises to the level of any of those namechecks.
Dunham has woven some interesting characters to surround Sarah Jo, like her mother Marilyn, played by Leigh, a much-divorced Hollywood hanger-on and twerking sister Treina, but she hasn’t given her main character any real depth. She is thirsty for carnal knowledge, and approaches it like a job, with a check list to boot, but aside from the humor inherent in that, Sarah Jo’s arc simply isn’t that interesting. Her desperation to prove to herself and others is repetitive, her actions so naïve they suggest her emotional age is far less than her stated age of 26. Given her mother’s openness regarding sex, it doesn’t ring true that Sarah Jo is completely unfamiliar with anything to do with sexuality.
“Sharp Stick” does have a few funny scenes, an interesting character or three, and an uncomfortable but refreshing candidness about sex but, by the time the end credits roll, Sarah Jo’s journey is the film’s least interesting element.
“My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea” is an audacious animated film from graphic novelist Dash Shaw that has been described as, “John Hughes fused with The Poseidon Adventure.” That’s not far off the mark. It’s a bravura, bizarro-land high school disaster flick, unlike anything else you’re likely to see this year.
Animated using a colourful hodgepodge of drawings, paintings and collage, it’s the strange story of sophomores Dash (voice of Jason Schwartzman) and his best friend Assaf (voice of Reggie Watts), writers for the newspaper at Tides High School. A wedge is pushed between the junior Woodward and Bernsteins when editor Verti (voice of Maya Rudolph) offers Assaf solo assignments. To even the score Dash writes a fictitious story about his former friend’s erectile dysfunction. He is suspended and when he uncovers an actual story—their school isn’t built to code—no one will believe him.
No one, that is, until an earthquake strikes, toppling the school into the Pacific trapping everyone inside. Racing to escape the crumbling building Dash and Assaf plus a crafty lunch lady (Susan Sarandon) and school-know-it-all Mary (Lena Dunham), must battle sharks, jellyfish, senior gangs, electrocution and more.
“My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea” startles with its originality. Visually it’s an eye-bending exercise in collage while the script’s dry wit and explorations of high school hierarchy are bang on the money. High school is about a balance of power and how better to test friendships and power dynamics than to throw everyone into a potentially life threatening situation?
