Tiny Furniture

[osprey_archer]

I watched the movie Tiny Furniture last night, because the director/star of the movie is my age. It’s good! It’s about Aura, who has just graduated college, and the story meanders through her first couple of weeks after moving back home: reconnecting with old friends, trying to fit back into her family, meeting a couple of guys...

There isn’t any kind of plot here, or even much narrative thrust, but the movie makes up for the lack of plot with its characters. Like real people, their motivations are opaque and their actions unpredictable, and trying to suss out their personalities and guess what they might do next is absorbing.

And also exasperating. Tiny Furniture’s protagonist, Aura, bears a striking resemblance to a girl I knew in college; not physically, but in her combination of passive-aggressive affectionate clinginess.

All of her promises came with the unspoken caveat if it’s convenient for me, which I suppose is not uncommon; but she invoked this caveat early and often and she was absolutely impervious to guilt. Sure, breaking her promise might be less than ideal behavior, but if anyone had the temerity to get angry at her about it, well then! Their guilt for being angry was clearly infinitely greater than any guilt she should feel.

If she got absolutely backed into a corner about her misdeeds, she would say something like “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Because she was! She was very sorry you felt that way. It was extremely inconvenient that you had decided, capriciously, to object to her absolutely reasonable actions! (Insert sad puppy face here.)

And of course Aura, being a movie character, exhibits this behavior in an extra-concentrated form. There were moments when I would have joyfully throttled her - which just shows how excellent the characterization in this movie is.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

So do you have the sense that the director was aware that this is an annoying personality trait, when one has to be on the receiving end, or do you think it was just that the director was faithfully portraying this type, but doesn't necessarily get the ramifications for others?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I think so? The other characters react to it as such, but there's never a moment where the narrative stands up and goes "HEY NOTICE HOW THIS IS AN ANNOYING PERSONALITY TRAIT?"