By BRUCE DENNILL
Girls: The Complete Third Season / Created by Lena Dunham / 16LSN
The buzz around Lena Dunham – creator, writer, director and star of this comedy-drama, which follows the fortunes of a group of friends approaching their mid-twenties and dealing with the arrival of responsible adulthood and all its challenges – is understandable to a point. It’s not often that someone of her age can get a whole series up and running and sustain it, to general critical success, for as long as she has.
But the character she plays, Hannah Horvath – by many accounts based closely on Dunham herself – has flaws and quirks that only amuse or inspire to a certain point. After that, she (Horvath, certainly) quickly becomes irritating.
In this season, all the protagonists have just experienced a major life change. Hannah and Adam (Adam Driver, the most compelling performer of the lot) have moved in together and are adjusting to having a domestic routine; Marnie (the beautiful Allison Williams) is attempting to bounce back from a tough break-up; Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) is trying to balance studying and her social life and Jessa (Jemima Kirke) returns from rehab to take on the temptations of trying to stay on the straight and narrow.
There are plenty of strong themes arising from the above threads. Occasionally there’s some sharp humour; perhaps more often there is unrefined – often vulgar – language and sex, included on the understanding that “this is how normal people are” or thoughts along those lines.
The thing is, even if that is true in the circles in which Dunham moves, it’s still pretty exotic for most viewers, and regardless of how sexed-up or potty-mouthed viewers may be, they’re still likely to be aggravated by the characters’ collective sense of entitlement. These are, pretty much to a man/woman, spoiled brats who see very few shades of gray – only the stark black and white of being wronged (supposedly) for not receiving exactly what they want, when they want it.
There are enough moments of worth to keep the series cohesive and, in parts, interesting, but the awards buzz and the widespread adulation seem a little odd.
Dunham interviews spectacularly well – she’s very smart – so perhaps there’s an element of the goodwill she generates in that space that comes across in the commentary on her work. If that’s not the case, Girls being regarded as much more than solid adult entertainment doesn’t entirely make sense.
