A funny new sitcom from 25-year-old screenwriter-director-actress Lena Dunham (“Tiny Furnture”) and producer Judd Apatow (“Bridesmaids”), “Girls” follows twentysomethings trying to ride out The Great Recession in Brooklyn.
Dunham’s co-stars include Jemima Kirke (“Tiny Furniture”) and famous offspring Allison Williams (daughter of newscaster Brian) and Zosia Mamet (daughter of writer-director David). Becky Ann Baker (“Freaks and Geeks”) and Peter Scolari (“Bosom Buddies”) play the Dunham character’s parents.
Apatow doesn’t direct or write the show, but it does feel a lot like “Freaks and Geeks” in that it seems to squeeze a lot of strong comedy out of real-world incident.
And real is even realer, thanks to HBO. These girlfriends are so close they take shits in front of each other and even bathe together. There’s also a lot of nudity and pervy sex games and doggy-style fornication.
The pilot also features a hilariously passive-aggressive battle between Dunham’s character, Hannah, and Hannah’s mom, who is determined to cut off Hannah’s financial support now that Hannah is 24 and a college graduate. Hannah doesn’t want to work at McDonalds. Mom, it turns out, is determined to buy a lake house.
If tonight’s pilot doesn’t fry your burger, I encourage you to stick with it. The series gets better as it progresses. Look at all these glowing reviews:
... It's certainly been a long time since I was this beguiled by a set a characters, but "Girls" is one of those rare birds: It's a show that comes to us with its voice, characters and ideas fully formed. …
... it may, in fact, be the best new HBO comedy since "Curb Your Enthusiasm" … As I'm neither a woman nor in my early 20s anymore, I can't speak to how well "Girls" captures that generation of women. But I can tell you that it definitely has a voice, and it's a great one: witty and wise and warm and not exactly like anything you've heard before.
... I can only say: Girls is actually that good. … A handful of you may know Dunham for her 2010 movie Tiny Furniture; Girls captures some of its elliptical indie sensibility, but in a way that’s more structured, with more story and stakes, and–not to overstate the role of co-producer Judd Apatow, because this is mainly Dunham’s creation–but it is in a way reminiscent of the naturalistic, character-based comedy-with-heart of Freaks and Geeks. (With HBO sex and language and a much more urban setting, of course.) …
... worth all the fuss … Ms. Dunham, who made her reputation with an independent, highly autobiographical movie, “Tiny Furniture,” makes great comedy out of her own shortcomings. …
... There is a cool cleverness to the show that is both attractive and off-putting; the characters are flawed and hyper-aware of their flaws, the stories so bent on covering every angle of self-examination that there is no real role for the viewer to play. Which makes watching it an intellectual rather than emotional experience. It is easy to laud the courage and talent behind the piece, to watch with great interest where the show will go, how it will push the artistic boundaries of television. It's more difficult to care about the characters themselves. Obliviously insular in that small space behind the glass, they are essentially incapable of real connection. Which is, after all, Dunham's point. …
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
… Lena Dunham just may be the future of television. If not, she comes thrillingly close with Sunday's premiere of her groundbreaking sitcom … "Girls" represents an exciting moment in television history because, like a handful of other shows (MTV's "Awkward," most notably) it not only makes great use of the medium but has the creative guts to realign it for a new century and a new generation. …
... Dunham has created a superior work of fictionalized anthropology. …
... This time it's not penned by patnernalistic male writers — or gay male writers a la "Sex and the City," with a skewed view of the subject. It's created, written by and starring a self-aware and self-deprecatingly funny young woman who lets us in on the process of mining her mistakes. ...
As funny and creative as her show may be, there's little doubt Girls (**** out of four) will be too explicit, too New York-specific, and too young-and-female-centric to appeal to everyone. But talent will out — and as creator, director and star of this new HBO sitcom, Dunham is clearly a talent to be reckoned with ...
… Welcome, girls. Or more precisely, young women, a breed of defiant bohemian twentysomethings who populate Lena Dunham's brilliantly raw and raunchy Girls, a true breakthrough series ...
… if "Tiny Furniture" filmmaker Lena Dunham's series is in places too mannered, it's also fresh, honest and raw. And if she's not the voice of her generation, as her character tells the folks, she's certainly a voice -- one worth hearing, and right at home on HBO. …
Few series come out of the box as brilliant as Girls does. The new HBO series from Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture) is one of the most original, spot-on, no-missed-steps series in recent memory. … Like Louie, Girls is shot through with the unmistakable DNA of its creator and it’s impossible to overstate the brilliance of the artistic vision at hand here. …
10:30 p.m. Sunday. HBO.
