Actor/writer/director Lena Dunham’s career goes something like this: dazzle everyone with her DIY, lo-fi indie debut “Tiny Furniture,” impress Judd Apatow with that film and get HBO to greenlight “Girls.” That honest coming-of-age series becomes the talk of television for at least five of its six seasons; then, she becomes something of a pariah on social media in the early days of Twitter for TMI over-sharing. Dunham then seemingly took a break from the public eye, aside from writing memoirs that seemed to alienate audiences further and just seemed to be out of the spotlight.
And well, it seems like she just took some quiet time to write and plan a return to directing, because this year, she returns with two feature-length films, “Catherine, Called Birdy,” a medieval comedy arriving in the fall, and before that, her coming-of-sexual-age dramedy “Sharp Stick.”
In our review of “Sharp Stick” earlier this year—it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival— we described it as a “provocative tale of sexual awakening tackling thorny material with compassion.”
Full of autobiographical elements, “Sharp Stick” stars Kristine Froseth as Sarah Jo, an innocent 26-year-old babysitter who had a hysterectomy at age 17 and loses her virginity to her employer. The film co-stars Jon Bernthal, Luka Sabbat, Scott Speedman, Lena Dunham, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Taylour Paige, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and by all accounts, its title, something confrontational that can prod, is apt. Here’s the official synopsis:
Sarah Jo (Kristine Froseth) is a sensitive and naive 26-year-old living on the fringes of Hollywood with her disillusioned mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and influencer sister (Taylour Paige). Working as a caregiver and just longing to be seen, she begins an exploratory affair with her older, married employer (Jon Bernthal) and is thrust into a startling education on sexuality, loss, and power.
“Sharp Stick” opens Friday, July 29 in New York and Los Angeles, expands to theaters nationwide on Friday, August 5, and will be available on Digital platforms on August 16 via Utopia Films. Watch the first trailer below via EW.
