Sharp Stick Is an Acerbic Tale of Awkward Sexual Awakenings

It’s true that many depictions of sex in Dunham’s work verge on female debasement—Aura’s flaccid fantasy of being fucked in a large, cold pipe on the street in Tiny Furniture, any word that escapes Adam’s mouth mid-coitus on Girls—but these hilariously lackluster sex scenes at least acknowledge that young women’s sex lives are often embarassing litmus tests in what we’re comfortable tolerating from others. Yet Sarah Jo is less intent on experimenting with her own personal comfort zone than she is proving she doesn’t have one at all. Weirdly enough, though, one letter on her ABCs of porn display—L for lesbianism—gets crossed out prematurely, with Sarah Jo simply noting: “not necessary!” Are you seriously telling me that a woman who has seemingly evaded male affection for her entire life has never—and will never—consider sleeping with a woman? Especially when this same woman is intent on conquering “B for bukkake” and “R for rimming”? It steeps the porno plotline into a solidly heterosexual framework that feels gnawingly bleak, particularly when considering that the entire basis of Sarah Jo’s newfound sexual voraciousness is due to one man introducing her to porn at the age of 26. It’s one thing to hinge Sarah Jo’s innocence on her virginity, and another to insist she’s this naive when her mother breezily discusses penis dimensions and her sister posts thirst traps for a living. As a sexually frustrated woman in her mid-20s with a laptop and privacy, is the audience simply supposed to believe she’s never mustered up the courage to type out an illicit Google search, only to be inevitably directed to the plethora of freely accessible smut online? The inconsistencies inherent to Sarah Jo’s erotic sensibilities make it hard to see her as a truly realized individual—as if she was just a robot solely programmed to awkwardly eat yogurt in a corner until someone flipped on the long-neglected “horny” switch.

For all of Sharp Stick’s shortcomings, it is an irrefutably audacious comeback for a filmmaker who has been told to “go away” countless times. Though nowhere near as sleazily charming as Tiny Furniture or culturally relevant as Girls, Sharp Stick finds Dunham grappling with myriad themes—straight women’s sexuality, motherhood, pornographic projection, autism, unconventional vs. nuclear family values and, yes, even race—in an erratic yet engaging way. The script is nowhere near as tight and the characters nowhere near as well-rounded as in Dunham’s previous efforts, yet this unpolished quality is what allows the film to exist in a realm of messiness that feels alluringly unfamiliar. In fact, the ideological murkiness of Sharp Stick is one of the most rewarding things about it. Perhaps if Dunham refined her focus or trimmed half-baked thematic threads, the film’s thesis would feel a lot more crystalline—but it’d also be a lot less fun to interact with.

To completely write off Lena Dunham as an artist unworthy of critical survey—even accounting for her many well-documented fuck-ups—is incredibly unproductive. As a writer, director, showrunner and actor, Dunham has irrevocably altered the landscape of how millennial women are portrayed on-screen, highlighting the ugliest (or at least the most cringe-worthy) aspects of our social, sexual and intellectual proclivities. For better or worse, she remains one of the most captivating “voices of her generation,” provoking incessant conversations about her art, body and very existence every time she grants an interview or announces a new project. Whether you love or hate Lena Dunham, one fact rings true: you’re sure as shit talking about her.

Director: Lena Dunham
Writer: Lena Dunham
Stars: Kristine Froseth, Jon Bernthal, Scott Speedman, Lena Dunham, Taylour Paige, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Release Date: January 22, 2022 (Sundance)

Natalia Keogan is a freelance film writer based in Queens, New York. Her work has been featured in Paste, Blood Knife and Filmmaker magazines, among others. Find her on Twitter.