Simply put, Lena Dunham’s “Sharp Stick” is a film about sex. But sex for a very naive, innocent, fearless, infertile, 26-year-old virgin woman is more than just sex, and the implications of the many encounters and decisions made by Sarah Jo (the luminous Kristine Froseth) on her journey of self-discovery can be dizzying in their sheer number and magnitude. Dunham, however, seemingly unperturbed by the vertiginous stakes of her creation, follows her heroine with inspiring patience and compassion, in a refreshingly loose and lo-fi film where each element gels so well with the others that it is hard to imagine the film didn’t simply emerge fully formed.
Sarah Jo’s mother, Marilyn (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and her adoptive sister Traina (Taylour Paige) never meet the young woman’s employer-turned-lover Josh (Jon Bernthal), but the electric and raw performances delivered by all the actors firmly anchor them to the same film world. It looks a lot like Los Angeles in 2021 — face masks included — but it is also a little better, and “Sharp Stick” is in some ways a fairytale. Like all good fairytales, it delights you, and it also messes you up.
I talked to Dunham about watching American films from the 1970s during the pandemic, Diane Keaton in “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” suspension of disbelief, the trust of actors and crew, introspection, and the dangers and excitement of encounters with strangers. “Sharp Stick” opens today, Friday, July 28, in limited release via Utopia Distribution.
I found “Sharp Stick” to be one of those films that are quite difficult to write about because it isn’t one of those films that is great because it is a well-oiled piece of machinery. Instead, it is great like a real artist’s film: it makes many daring leaps, it is sometimes confusing, and it does a lot of things that the viewer might need some time to sit with afterward.
Thank you. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. There definitely were many things where, if we were attempting to make viewers feel uncomfortable, or the film was shaped in a certain way, or it had a certain plot structure, or the characters did or did not grow from their experiences — things were the film definitely ran counter to how we’re usually asked to make modern films. I think part of that is because “Sharp Stick” was so inspired by films that I love from the 1970s and which kind of said no to all of that stuff, and were working from such a primal place.
What were some of those inspirations, and what was the starting point for the film?
It was in the middle of COVID, at that moment when we were not seeing anyone, and I got the lucky chance to have coffee with my friend Janicza Bravo — who’s an amazing director, one of my favorite directors of all time — and we were talking about what kinds of movies we had just been watching for comfort during the pandemic. She told me that she had just rewatched “Looking for Mr. Goodbar.” I had read the book, but I had never seen the film. And that was the starting point for me going back on a journey with all of these movies from the 1970s, with these kinds of complicated, kind of sexually open, provocative female heroines.
But then also thinking about the fact that even at that moment, which I think was one of the most interesting moments for women on screen, there was still this sense that every woman who was on a journey of sexual discovery ended up punished in some way — punished by the circumstances of her life, by being alone, by being an outcast. And I started to think about what would it look like to have a character like that, but then allow the sexual journey not to, in some ways, send her into a space of darkness. And of course, there are moments where it sends her into a space of darkness, but that was the starting off germ for the movie. Then it was one of those things that just came out of my head, sort of fully formed. Of course, it then changes at every single stage, but it was a really quick process of the script coming out, of development and prep. I wrote the movie in August, and we were shooting in December.
It’s interesting because “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” is kind of a horrible film. The way it ends is so nasty, though it does have a great soundtrack.
It’s the nastiest ending in the world. The movie sort of punishes her at every turn, and it’s interesting because Diane Keaton is doing amazing work, but she’s doing amazing work despite the fact that at every single turn, she’s basically being given a new horrific punishment, just for having curiosity about her body. And it is a nasty end, it leaves you feeling so nauseous, and I think in some ways, “Sharp Stick” was a response to just how nauseous that ending left me feeling.
I always think of Diane Keaton as such a strong woman, and this film continually punishes her. But then in your film, Sarah Jo, played by Kristine Froseth, looks so vulnerable all the time, almost like a child. And yet she isn’t. There are obstacles in her way, but she isn’t punished by a sort of vengeful, male universe that just has to see her end.
You’re right; even when Diane Keaton plays a character who might not be in the strongest set of circumstances, you just feel like her essential spine, and her intensity are preserved. In “The Godfather,” even though she’s essentially forced to be this kind of accessory, you can still feel her power. I was very interested in the idea of a character who also didn’t move through the world with these kinds of totems of what it means to be an empowered woman. There’s a way we think we’re supposed to dress to say that we have self-awareness — but Sarah Jo dresses like an 11-year-old. There’s a way that we think we’re supposed to talk.
And there are street smarts we think we have to operate with. But Sarah Jo is almost like this fairytale princess. And that’s the thing: in many ways, the film is sort of a fairy tale. And I think the problem is always whether you can get your audience to suspend certain kinds of disbelief that they have, that this character could exist or could find her way into the world despite the fact that she lives in the family she does. But what I was so grateful for was that all the actors, all the crew, everyone was willing to suspend their disbelief that this girl would have made her way to 26 with all of this sort of innocence intact. The thing is, you soon find out that she’s, in fact, probably been gearing up to be in this place in her life for 16 years; it’s just that it was sort of living in her unconscious.
Read on to page two for more of this conversation.
