Lena Dunham’s ‘amateurish’ new film Sharp Stick slated by critics as it debuts at Sundance: ‘A cinematic javelin to the head’

metro.co.uk:

Lena Dunham’s latest film Sharp Stick has debuted at Sundance Film Festival and – unfortunately for the creator of smash-hit TV show Girls – her latest release has attracted some pretty damning criticism.Dunham, whose last – and first – feature film Tiny Furniture was released in 2010, has her new film focus on Sarah Jo (Kristine Froseth), a naive 26-year-old virgin who begins an affair with her older employer Josh (Jon Bernthal), whose son she takes care of.The writer and actress also stars as Bernthal’s wife, while Scott Speedman, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tommy Dorfman round out a pretty impressive cast.However, the movie is off to a pretty inauspicious start, with The New York Post branding Sharp Stick ‘hollow’, ‘amateurish’ and like ‘a cinematic javelin to the head’, while Collider called it ‘an inconsistent mess’.Social media was also awash with the backlash, with one user tweeting: ‘No saving grace here.

The worst of #Sundance so far.’From these initial reactions, it seems Sharp Stick is one that will divide audiences.Sharp Stick (2022) is gonna be a big no from me dogWatching Sharp Stick.

One of my friends just said âI canât do thisâ and left. Lena is back! #sundancehelp iâm getting bullied for not liking sharp stick pic.twitter.com/cjeCOr7f0s‘Sharp Stick is meant to be a very funny coming-of-age tale, but we rarely laugh because we don’t believe a nanosecond of it.‘Girls, like it or not, was a defining TV show for an entire generation, and certainly the last half-hour comedy until And Just Like That to regularly become a talker the next morning.