The Girls co-creator’s first feature since 2011 on a 26-year-old’s sexual awakening has flashes of brilliance but is hobbled by infantilization

Ever since Hannah Horvath, the unfocused twentysomething protagonist of the HBO series Girls, declared herself the voice of a generation, audiences have struggled to read Lena Dunham. The line was clearly at least half-ironic, a joke, but many took it at face value, indicative of Dunham’s aspirations as both a writer and public figure. Dunham has provoked, fairly and unfairly, intense reactions since Girls, which she created with Jenni Konner, put her on the map in 2012, at 25; her solid artistic instincts – go back and watch the pre-MeToo sixth season episode American Bitch, which shreds the double-edged flattery of the self-important male artist – are often accompanied by baffling foot-in-mouth moments along lines of race, class, gender, and plain old overexposure.

Sharp Stick, Dunham’s first film since her breakout feature Tiny Furniture in 2011, isn’t likely to help that reputation. This awkward, misjudged, occasionally sexy film has seeds of a radical, fresh story and flashes of directorial brilliance but is hobbled throughout by the confounding decision to write her 26-year-old main character as either insensitively neuro-divergent or more sheltered child than adult.

Sharp Stick is showing at the Sundance film festival with a release date to be announced