I tend to hate reviews that arbitrarily pit films against each
other, setting one up as a cudgel to thrash the other with. It's the
obnoxious conceit that drives Armond White's annual "better-than" lists,
the idea that something can only be considered good while in relief
against something dismal.
That said, I've been trying to figure out why I liked Noah Baumbach's FRANCES HA so much more than Lena Dunham's TINY FURNITURE, both Criterion releases (the former having been released yesterday in a Blu/DVD dual format package).
Both
films have a superficially identical recipe: a twenty-something white
woman experiencing post-college paralysis, adrift in Manhattan (and, of
course, Brooklyn; the nerve center for this sort of thing), sponging off
of others while vaguely aiming for an unambitious career in the arts,
surrounded by a coterie of privileged, like-minded, polyamorous friends
and -- ultimately -- just (heavy sigh) soooo unsure of what to do with
themselves.
