Main Cast: Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, Adam Driver, Alex Karpovsky, Christopher Abbott, Andrew Rannells;
The adventures and mishaps of Hanna and her friends continue (here is my review of season 1, in case you missed it). Since the very first scene we can see that, this time around, Girls is more about boys. Not only as friends, boyfriends or ex-boyfriends of the girls in question but also as characters in their own right. We see how Adam (Driver), Hanna’s former boyfriend, reacts to heartache and is more peculiar than ever. Charlie (Abbott), after breaking up with Marnie, bounces back pretty nicely and his friend Ray (Karpovsky), cynic and rather jaded, finally falls for a girl. Hanna’s life seems back on track: getting along splendidly with her new roommate Elijah (Rannells), a new boyfriend and a job as writer, everything is rainbows and puppies. On the other hand Marnie has fallen, rather spectacularly, to pieces: no more ideal job, no more boyfriend and no more great expectations. Jenna, while breezing carefree through her days, still exuding charisma, has found her focus or so it appears. Shoshanna finally feels like a grown-up with a proper boyfriend, Ray. The set-up is for meaningful character development but that’s not the life of twenty-something girls, at least according to Dunham. The evolution is more a devolution and we witness the downward spiral of our heroines, their attempts to solve messy situations land them, more often than not, into more predicaments. Moreover they show signs of borderline mental disorder, Hanna most of all, and it is a little disconcerting. Watching episode after episode is similar to the morbid fascination of looking at a car crash: you know you shouldn’t but you can’t help yourself. Baffling but addicting —6.5/10
Ramblings of a cinephile 