Lena Dunham

Besides New Girl, Girls was my favorite tv show of the year. I'm in awe of Lena Dunham--that she created, wrote, directed, and acted in Girls and Tiny Furniture and that she's 26.

Tiny Furniture is a lot like Girls--it explores the ennui of a recent college graduate who has also recently been through a break-up and is now trying to figure out what she's going to do with her life. Aura, Dunham's character, also feels the pressure of living up to the expectations of her mother, a photographer of tiny furniture (not too different from Dunham's own mother, who photographs dolls in dollhouses, among other things).

The film captures the complications of family life--the way that they can drive you crazy, the way that you act like an angry fool in front of them, and the way that you make up and love each other afterward. In the course of the film, Aura discovers her mother's journal and becomes aware of the many ways in which she's just like her mother, with the same struggles with men and food that her mother faced. I remember finding my mother's journals--both her journal as a child, dealing with things like her grandfather dying, and her journal from just after she married my father, which she redacted before sharing. It's a funny realization that's part of growing up: your mother wasn't always your mother, she's also a person who has had a lot of the same experiences that you've had.

Girls is Sex and the City, except not about affluent 30-somethings dealing with men and relationships, but about dirt-poor 20-somethings, trying to find jobs, figuring out what friendship is, and dealing with men and relationships. And maybe it's told from Miranda's perspective, rather than Carrie's. Or a mix of Miranda and Carrie.

Everyone calls it a comedy, but if it's a comedy, then it's much better than all the other comedies. It's much more realistic, with better developed characters who could be real people (in the way that Liz Lemon or Leslie Knope or Jess Day couldn't really be real people, as much as I love them all). I don't think the show is about the funny moments--it's about the struggles: the roommate struggles, the boy troubles, the drama at work.