Written and directed by Lena Dunham
Starring Kristine Froseth, Jon Bernthal, Lena Dunham, Taylour Paige, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Scott Speedman, Ebon Moss-Bachrach
Rated R
Runtime: 1 hour 26 minutes
In NY/LA July 29, nationwide August 5, digital August 16

By Audrey Callerstrom, Associate Editor and Staff Writer

If the name “Lena Dunham” makes you recoil, I expect you probably haven’t scrolled down this far to read this review. Or maybe your curiosity got the better of you. In either case, welcome.

I’ve run hot-and-cold with Dunham since the premiere of Girls in 2012. She’s a bit younger than me, and her background does not mirror mine, but I see her as a peer in some ways. She’s a writer, like me. She’s candid about her experiences with anxiety, depression, and psychiatric medications. She wants to convey a perspective that she sees as unique, one that is confessional, self-deprecating, and addresses taboo subjects. Was it enough to carry Girls along for six seasons? Not really. You can only get so far with the characters you have, pairing them off and breaking them up, over and over, before it starts to wane.

After relative silence (she’s published essays and produced and directed for other HBO series), Dunham returns to film, following 2010’s Tiny Furniture, with Sharp Stick, an acute coming-of-age/sexual awakening drama that doesn’t quite land. Stick stars Kristine Froseth as the virginal, saintly Sarah Jo, a twenty-something living in Los Angeles with her mother Marilyn (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and half-sister Treina (Taylour Paige). Dunham makes an interesting choice in Stick’s earliest scenes. Often criticized for the lack of diversity on Girls, Dunham opens Stick with footage of Paige dancing provocatively to a hip hop song, swinging her gold braids back and forth. Why is this the first shot of the film when it’s not even about Treina? It’s one among many odd choices in Dunham’s film.

Sarah Jo had a radical hysterectomy as a teen. She’s seen caressing her scar during a Zoom call. It’s helpful to know that Dunham herself also had a hysterectomy, which she detailed in an essay. The details behind Sarah Jo’s hysterectomy are messy. Presumably, they mirror what happened to Dunham, although I’m unsure if such an onslaught of pain and issues that necessitate the removal of an organ can occur at such a young age. Neither is Froseth very convincing as someone who experienced such medical trauma. She remains naïve and doe-eyed throughout the film. One thing Stick gets right is casting Jon Bernthal as dude-bro doofus dad Josh. Josh and his wife, the very pregnant Heather (Dunham) have a son, Zach (Liam Michel Saux) who has Down Syndrome, and Sarah Jo is his caregiver. After taking love advice from her mother (although it seems like Sarah Jo, 26, should know better), she pursues an affair with Josh, and a sexual awakening begins.

If you’re wondering how Bernthal can turn into such a doofus, it’s pretty easy. He wears hoodies and sweatpants throughout the film and he has that middle-part shaggy doofus haircut that looks out of place in 2022. Their courtship is plausible, but Froseth never really conveys the excitement about her new sexual agency. She seems to act like an observer in her life, and not a participant. Whether it’s intentional is unclear, but it doesn’t make for an engaging character. She somehow knows words like “clandestine” but doesn’t know what to do when Josh asks her to blow him (she blows air). She never really feels like a family with Marilyn and Treina, either. They all seem like they’re from separate families, temporarily orbiting around each other, as though they met at a bus station. They don’t act like three people who have shared stories, who know each other better than anyone else. In a bit of lazy exposition, the girls ask Marilyn how they were conceived, as if these details hadn’t already been shared with them several times.

There are things about Sharp Stick that make it feel like a first feature. Like how Dunham seems to under-direct Froseth, or how random musical queues accompany things like an uneventful walk. One of those silly, nothing pop songs written solely for montages shows up, too. Dunham dresses Sarah Jo in modest fashion. She wears childlike jumpers and dresses that aren’t obtainable from any store, big bows like an American Girl doll. The film loses momentum when Bernthal leaves, and Sarah Jo is left to her own devices, watching porn and checking off sexual acts like it’s a collection. It’s unclear what Dunham is trying to say with this film and its conclusion. What about the hysterectomy stunted Sarah Jo’s sexual development? Why is she so peculiar, like she was raised in the Dogtooth household? It feels like Sharp Stick is Dunham trying to address her hysterectomy, and it gives her an opportunity to birth a child (albeit offscreen), but otherwise her intentions are unclear.