Sharp Stick – first-look review

Self-pro­claimed ​‘voice of a gen­er­a­tion’ Lena Dun­ham has had a tur­bu­lent few years, and her con­tentious rela­tion­ship with the pub­lic at large shows no signs of abat­ing with the arrival of her sec­ond fea­ture film. A com­ing-of-age sto­ry about a naïve young woman’s com­pli­cat­ed sex­u­al awak­en­ing, Sharp Stick is like­ly to prove as divi­sive as all of Dunham’s past work, but thanks to a sym­pa­thet­ic and sweet per­for­mance from lead­ing lady Kris­tene Froseth and a no-holds-barred script which reflects its creator’s out­spo­ken sen­si­bil­i­ties, it’s an inter­est­ing film even in its less suc­cess­ful moments.

26-year-old Sarah Jo lives with her sis­ter Treina (Tay­lour Paige) and moth­er Mar­i­lyn (Jen­nifer Jason Leigh) in a Los Ange­les duplex; her moth­er is a five-time divorcee and Treina an inspir­ing Insta­gram influ­encer. Their fam­i­ly is close, and for the most part open with each oth­er. Sarah Jo is a lit­tle envi­ous of Treina’s unin­hib­it­ed per­son­al­i­ty and her mother’s world­li­ness, as she under­went an essen­tial hys­terec­to­my at 17 and its left her unsure of her place in the world.

Although she enjoys her work as a care­giv­er for Zack (Liam Michel Saux) who has Down’s Syn­drome, she feels her lack of sex­u­al expe­ri­ence is a hin­der­ance, and decides to takes mat­ters into her own hands when an attrac­tion towards Zack’s father Josh (Jon Bern­thal) devel­ops. Josh, a goofy but unde­ni­ably hot LA slack­er, puts up min­i­mal resis­tance, despite being mar­ried to heav­i­ly-preg­nant Heather (Lena Dunham).

It’s refresh­ing to meet a pro­tag­o­nist deeply in con­trol of her own sex­u­al­i­ty. Sarah Jo, despite her shel­tered out­look and pos­si­bly being on the autism spec­trum (a detail hint­ed at but nev­er con­firmed) knows her own mind, and although she false­ly con­flates sex­u­al­i­ty with wom­an­hood, Sharp Stick nev­er judges her for it. There’s a sym­pa­thy and sweet­ness at play, con­trast­ed against the ​‘taboo’ nature of the sex­u­al acts Sarah Jo embarks on.

The film los­es its way a lit­tle in the sec­ond half, as Sarah Jo’s affair with Josh implodes, and she resolves to win him over by becom­ing a sex­u­al dynamo. In the process she also becomes obsessed with porn star Vance Leroy (Scott Speed­man) who she sees as a guid­ing light in her jour­ney towards learn­ing every­thing she ever want­ed to know about sex. There’s a dis­con­nect from the sexy, intrigu­ing first act, as every­thing becomes a lit­tle more scat­ter­shot and we lose the nov­el­ty of Bernthal’s charm­ing per­for­mance as a con­niv­ing Cal­i­forn­ian fuckboy.

True to form, Dun­ham doesn’t shy away from por­tray­ing the act of sex, and does so with­out any judge­ment. Explor­ing her desires is key to Sarah Jo’s jour­ney, and Sharp Stick refresh­ing­ly allows its female lead to be per­pet­u­al­ly horny with­out it being pre­sent­ed as a char­ac­ter flaw.

Dun­ham has writ­ten hon­est­ly about how her own expe­ri­ence of under­go­ing a hys­terec­to­my impact­ed her, and it’s clear that this has influ­enced Sharp Stick. Pop­u­lar cul­ture still strug­gles to address this process, par­tic­u­lar­ly for women at a young age, and Dun­ham treats the mat­ter with can­dour. Although Sharp Stick stum­bles in the back half, it feels like a mat­u­ra­tion for Dun­ham, con­fronting dif­fi­cult top­ics with an admirable frank­ness and pre­sent­ing a sharp per­for­mance from the com­pelling Kris­tine Froseth, sure­ly one to watch.