Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sharp Stick’ on VOD, Lena Dunham’s Story of a Naif on a Crazy Sexual Journey

Now on VOD, Sharp Stick is the second film directed by Lena Dunham, creator of HBO’s Girls and occasional shit-stirrer. The movie puts Dunham’s brand of somewhat awkward, somewhat confessional comedy on full display, casting Kristine Froseth (Birds of Paradise) as a 26-year-old virgin naif seeking to broaden her sexual experience. And of course, this being a Lena Dunham project, the story is frank and uncomfortable and provocative and funny – but, being her first movie since 2010’s Tiny Furniture, the screenplay might show a little bit of rust.

‘SHARP STICK’: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Sarah Jo (Froseth) bears a cross every day of her life – a pair of intersecting scars on her abdomen from an emergency hysterectomy when she was 15. Then she went through menopause. She’s 26 now, but looks and acts much younger, wearing girlish prairie dresses and barrettes in her hair, her eyes wide like she’s ready to see the many, many things she’s never seen before. She has her own little apartment in the small complex run by her mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a by-turns New Age drivelspeaker and unfiltered blunt-talker who passes blunts with Sarah Jo’s older sister and budding influencer Treina (Taylour Paige) at the breakfast table while Sarah Jo shovels huge spoonfuls of yogurt into her mouth. Talk inevitably goes to men, and sex, and Mom reveals, “After five California divorces, it loses a little bit of its tingle.”

Sarah Jo works as a babysitter-slash-nanny for Zach (Liam Michel Saux), the special-needs son of Heather (Dunham), who brings home the bacon, and also is many months pregnant, and Josh (Jon Bernthal), who does whatever all day, which helps him maintain his status as an immature goofus. It also helps enable his significant role in Sarah Jo’s sexual awakening. You may cringe now, that’s a perfectly acceptable reaction. Factor in his maturity level, and he’s around about 17, but considering hers is surely even younger, you know, eeesh.

Josh knows what he’s getting into. She speaks frankly of her inexperience, and he says he’s kinda known for doing that one thing, you know, that involves putting your mouth in a specific place and exercising your tongue. He introduces her to psychedelic drugs and the vast universe of internet porn, the latter of which enables Sarah Jo to continue her education alone. She lands on explicit-videomeister Vance Leroy (Scott Speedman), who talks sensitively about feelings but also is ripped and has tough-bro tats. (He is perfect in oh so many ways.) Then she makes a checklist of things she wants to accomplish in the domain of lovemaking. Meanwhile, Mom throws a not-a-baby-shower to celebrate Treina’s abortion, in case you haven’t cringed enough at everything else in this movie.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Sharp Stick shares many things in common with Good Luck to You, Leo Grande when it comes to candid sex talk. And sex itself, for that matter. Also, Vance Leroy and Mikey Saber from Red Rocket could feasibly be pals, siblings or maybe even the same person.

Performance Worth Watching: Bernthal embodies an impressively charismatic mess of a human being and Speedman steals scenes as the most charming POV guy in Pornville. Take your pick.

Memorable Dialogue: “Congratulations, Vance Leroy. You are my porn star.”

Sex and Skin: Plenty of all types! But nothing graphically frontal in the nudity dept.

Our Take: Sharp Stick is roughly two-thirds of a movie, as if Dunham throws a handful of ideas up in the air to see where they land. It’s messy, and Sarah Jo feels like a contrived, improbable character, a straw woman of sorts for the filmmaker to prop up to see if anyone is stupid enough to knock her down. Of course, we shouldn’t – in her director’s statement, Dunham says Sarah Jo is on a “judgment free sexual journey,” and we shouldn’t begrudge anyone’s desire for such. But her interpretation of “blowjob” as an act involving the forceful pushing of air between one’s lips is a joke that goes beyond believability.

So the film wavers between silly and provocative, but lands in an uncomfortable tonal zone – somewhere between earnest and romantic coming-of-age story and winking, tawdry John Waters – that keeps us alert and curious. Josh is more complicated than we initially believe; the Mom-Treina dynamic Sarah Jo observes, but is never really a part of, is compelling; and more creative use of Vance Leroy could’ve opened the film to a bigger, broader, more ambitious comic realm. All these characters beg for further exploration, as Sarah Jo’s arc ramps up for a theoretically wild third act that doesn’t deliver enough laughs or dramatic revelations to inspire much beyond shrugging recognition that this movie may be over, but this young woman’s story is just beginning. Good for her, I guess.

Our Call: Outside a few funny and sexy moments, Sharp Stick never quite coheres as a narrative, or fully engages our emotions. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.

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