Twelve years after her feature debut, Tiny Furniture, multi-hyphenate creative Lena Dunham has broken her cinema silence with two new films. Though set centuries apart, both concern young women coming to with the expectations of the world around them—one being forced to grow up too fast, the other having missed out on a whole decade of messing around. 

Catherine Called Birdy, which premieres next month at TIFF, adapts Karen Cushman’s novel about a Medieval teenager (Bella Ramsey) trying many different ways to get out of the marriages her father (Andrew Scott) keeps arranging for her. Sharp Stick, which is out now after its Sundance premiere earlier this year, follows 26-year-old special-needs careworker Sarah Jo (Kristine Froseth) down a sex rabbithole as she makes up for lost time after a hysterectomy that stunted her teenagehood. 

Sharp Stick carries many Dunham hallmarks: smart casting (Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jon Bernthal, Taylour Paige, Tommy Dorfman, fellow filmmaker Janicza Bravo), a vivid sense of the city it’s set in (LA, sizzling in lockdown), sexual frankness (there’s a ritual for a terminated pregnancy) and funny, sharp conversations between characters ranging from wholly likeable (Sarah Jo’s young charge, Zach; Scott Speedman as a compliments-giving porn star) to deeply icky (Yuli, played by Ebon Moss Bachrach, a veteran of Dunham’s Girls series as manipulative musician Desi). 

Producer, writer and director Dunham also appears as heavily pregnant Heather, mother of Zach and wife of Bernthal’s Josh, whom Sarah Jo sets her sights on as her way out of virginity and into the adult world her mom (Leigh) and sister (Paige) confidently inhabit. 

Since its release into theaters and on digital platforms, the film has also attracted the recognizable hallmarks of Dunham audiences, namely boat-loads of criticism—of Dunham, her ideas, her female characters, her privilege, her opinions, her body, her public mistakes, her oversharing, her relationships, her tone-deafness—at a level that far outweighs her male counterparts. Even when people like her films, they make a point of hating saying so. “I am saddened and ashamed to it I thoroughly enjoyed a L**a Du**am film,” writes Jesus of Sharp Stick; “Came to hate watch Lena Dunham and was disappointed because the movie’s not bad!” says Avaratcliff.

In spite of it all, Lena Dunham is very online, which, it turns out, includes lurking on Letterboxd. She knows what’s being said, and it seems a feat of immense personal resilience—or hubris, or go-for-brokeness, take your pick—to get up every day and continue creating with all the noise. It’s the very first question I had for her when we jumped onto a Zoom to discuss the filmmaker’s favorite sexy films, the way she celebrates bodies, and her love for The Worst Person in the World. 

I don’t know how you do it. The internet is a vile place, it’s also a wonderful place. How do you wake up every day and deal with the ways in which people perceive you online? I think this is relevant to the film.
Lena Dunham: It’s relevant to the film, too. I was just saying to someone today, I was like, it’s easy to think that the internet is just obscure and a problem, but it also allows so many different people to connect and to find space for themselves where there wouldn’t otherwise be space. It allows people whose voices have traditionally been oppressed and repressed to speak, and that’s a beautiful thing. 

And honestly, the biggest way I deal with it is that I don’t look at it. At this point in my life, someone else is dealing with my Instagram, someone else is dealing with my Twitter. I’m in the lucky position where I can have a very smart woman who posts things for me and lets me know if there’s something I need to know. Of course things still make their way to me, but it allows me to have my own life where I’m not just reacting to reaction to me, which I think isn’t only unhelpful emotionally, but also takes you out of a space where you can be having natural, creative conversation.

I really appreciate you answering. It’s so fascinating, isn’t it? I mean, we’re a social network—
LD: I love Letterboxd! I love Letterboxd and I love looking at other Letterboxd s of people that I respect and ire. It’s such a cool medium. I wish it had existed when I was keeping my first Blogspot blog, reviewing all the new things that I loved. I had my silly Blogspot where I would write a review that nobody cared about. I wish that I’d had Letterboxd to find the people who I could be in conversation with because it would’ve been so helpful to that little excitable film student.

But here’s the thing: a woman could write ten words or 10,000 words on the internet and either way she will get shit thrown at her.
LD: Every woman who’s online—I’m sure you’ve dealt with it in your own way—every person who expresses an opinion online, but especially if they dare to do it well, identifying as female, there’s a very specific [noise] that they get. I know that I’m not the only person who deals with the internet playing two very different roles in my life: one that allows for connection and exploration and one that’s much scarier. Teenagers deal with it, it’s applicable to all of our life.

So I loved the idea that these two young women could be taking a journey of self-exploration and the internet would actually be helping them with it versus hurting them. And of course there’s the challenges, the expectations that Treina might have of herself because of the fact that she’s visible online, the things that Sarah Jo might see while she’s looking to understand herself more in a clearer way sexually. All of that still exists, but I wanted it to feel healthier.

There’s a real flex going on with you as a director in this film: the mix of styles, aspect ratios, animation, the camera drifting away from the action and over the city, the soundtrack, the celebration of bodies, that Jon Bernthal moment...
LD: It’s so cool to hear you say that because it’s so easy for this filmmaking to get lost in the conversation about what it’s about. It’s always such a joy when somebody points out what they’re seeing, because all those choices were so intentional, working with my amazing cinematographer, Ashley Connor, who totally blew my mind open. 

It was a two-day conversation alone [about] what aspect ratio to shoot the movie in. So thank you for seeing that. And thank you for seeing the celebration of the bodies and being able to celebrate a male body as much as we’re celebrating female bodies. That was all the goal and it’s incredible to hear you report it back to me.

In Blake’s review he writes, “Love all the creative practicals, especially the red bulbs, loved all the closeups. I liked that the director of photography wasn’t afraid of white walls.” What were your notes to yourself going in as director?
LD: I think that I had an LA in my imagination. This kind of fairytale LA that I wanted to see coupled with some moments of dark realism. It was also really important to me that we felt like we were shooting sex from a female and a feminist point of view. I mean, I think it was interesting for me to think that even though I was always talking about sex from a woman’s point of view, there are times, just because I was raised on movies lensed by men, that I was probably doing it the same way. And so it was always a part of the story that we would have sex, but no female nudity, that it would be very much seen from trying to see sex the way that Sarah Jo might be seeing sex, as it’s new to her.

So those were some of the cinematographic goals. And then also to really revel in the beauty of each of those actresses but in a way that didn’t feel like it objectified them, and to revel in the beauty of Jon and Eben in a way that didn’t feel like it objectified them. Also, really, a lot of use of color and colored light to tell us where we were and what was happening. Those were some of the conversations that Ashley and I were having as we made a very intensive shot list and then went for it.

Did he get to watch these films with you?
LD: He did. He watched some of those films with me and also my husband did the score for this, so he was very aware of that ’70s influence.

LF: And the whole psychedelic thing’s important.

And you’re okay if I quote you, Mr. Mystery Husband?
LF: Thanks. Let me come by and say hi.

Hello. Hey, what’s your favorite movie soundtrack of all time, while you’re here?
LF: Top three, and this is from childhood: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers. They’re quite violent, but then more in adult life I guess I’d have to throw The Virgin Suicides in there. That’s more of a score than a soundtrack, I guess.

Thanks Luis! Okay Lena, Caroline writes, "Look, I wish I could give an honest review of this, but I’m bewitched by Bernthal’s tongue work. I can’t really form an opinion. Feel like a Looney Tune cartoon that got hit in the face with a frying pan. I don’t know, movies are magic, what do you want from me?”
LD: That’s the best review I’ve ever heard. I have to say, I was with Jon the other day and I told him, “Even people who don’t like the movie really like your performance.” I was trying to say it in the most polite way possible…

Well, in response to that, what is for you, in the history of cinema, the sexiest scene ever committed to the screen?
LD: I don’t even need to think about it, it is in Coming Home, the Hal Ashby movie, when Jane Fonda has her first orgasm. That is the sexiest scene ever done, that is the sexiest scene ever committed. It’s completely, 1000% about her pleasure in that moment. The way that she makes you believe that she’s experiencing this for the first time. What her face and what her eyes say, the way it’s shot. I mean, the first time I saw that scene, I felt like a Looney Tune who had been hit in the face with a frying pan. If you were like, “What is Coming Home about?” I’d be like, “It’s about when someone goes down on Jane Fonda.”

And what was the first film that gave you teenage feelings?
LD: Oh my God. Okay. I that I was on a family trip at a resort and they were showing a movie in the common area. I was probably eight and it was A Fish Called Wanda. There’s a really intense sex scene with Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis and I just did not even know what had happened to me. I walked back into that family hotel we were all sharing, very confused. I would say that they were pre-teenage feelings, but it definitely, like, forced some questions in the home. That and Robin Hood: Men in Tights were the first two movies where I was like, “what’s happening here?”

And of course later there were movies that had a much more direct and formative impact on my sexuality. But those are two of the movies I , literally just like new concepts, just totally new concepts. And not in a scary way, but just in a way that was making me ask some questions about how we all came to be here on this earth.

I want to ask you about some of the critique that’s landing on Letterboxd, specifically that it’s impossible that Sarah Jo will get to the age of 26 and not have had sex and be this innocent in the world. To some film lovers on Letterboxd, it feels like it’s not real, which, first of all, suggests a mythical idea of when women’s sexuality starts.
LD: Well, it’s interesting. My dad, after he first saw the movie, referred to it as a sexual fable, and I thought that was really interesting, the idea that it was a sort of fable about some of the most fairytale aspects of finding your sexuality.

That being said, I think there’s this idea that our sexuality forms based on who we’re around or what we see, and so much of the time we form our self-identity either in response to that, or we’re trying to hide from it. To me, Sarah Jo is the way she is exactly because she had the mother that she did and she grew up in the place that she did and she was trying as hard as she could to protect herself and to cocoon this younger part of herself for as long as she could.

And then when it finally comes out, it’s not just a little spurt, it’s a geyser. So it was an intentional thing to explore a character who was able to hold on to this certain time of naivete or godlessness, and it’s a testament to Kristine Froseth that she was able to make that so believable, at least for me.

People will always have opinions about women having sex in films. Speaking of, have you seen Good Luck to You, Leo Grande?
LD: I have. I actually watched it with my parents. I thought it was beautiful. It was funny because the movies were getting compared a lot out of Sundance and I thought, ‘is it just because they’re both about women having sex?’. And then when I saw that Emma Thompson’s character has this very specific list of things she wants to accomplish, I loved it. I found that film so affecting, that final scene. I mean, Daryl McCormack is amazing. Emma Thompson, duh, she’s Emma Thompson. But that moment where she’s looking at her body in the mirror at the end was so beautiful and Sophie Hyde’s direction was so sensitive. I couldn’t have loved the movie more.

The perfect double feature!
LD: Thank you. I hope that someday they’ll screen together. I could not be more honored that anyone would mention us in the same breath.

You have not one but two films out this year. You’ll be at TIFF with a new historical adventure film, Catherine Called Birdy.
LD: I can’t wait for you to see it. It’s different than this movie, but it’s also asking a lot of the same questions.

Finally, Scott Speedman pops up in Sharp Stick. Which Vance Leroy compliment did you love the most, or cracked you up the most?
LD: It really makes me laugh every time when he says, “You’re so beautiful it makes me want to kill myself.” It just never doesn’t make me laugh. And he commits. He’d committed so hard, I don’t think it would’ve worked if he had been doing it with a wink, but he was doing it with full sincerity. He is a gift in that role.