Sharp Stick

Girls-creator Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture, GFF 2011) returns to feature film with a daring portrayal of a young woman’s sexual awakening.

After a traumatic hysterectomy in her teens, Sara Jo (Kristine Froseth) is now an inhibited and very naive 26-year-old virgin. She lives with her mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her far more outgoing influencer sister (Taylor Paige) in the outskirts of Hollywood. There, she works as a personal assistant to a young boy with Down syndrome, in a family that also includes the heavily pregnant breadwinning mother (Dunham) and the slacker stay-at-home dad Josh (Jon Bernthal). In order to make up for her lack of experience, one day she surprises Josh with a sexual invitation, which becomes the starting point of an upheaval and debaucherous journey. It’s entertaining, hilarious, and – as usual for Lena Dunham – well-written and on-point regarding young adult women today.

• Johan Blomqvist