‘Girls’ Are All Right

Whatever it is these girls and boys want with each other, they don’t have the foggiest idea how to get it. The bitter honesty about the failings of these articulate, interesting, amusing people is just one of the tough-minded qualities that sets Girls apart from the more winning but profoundly false we-are-women-hear-us-roar gender-solidarity fantasy that was Sex and the City. That show was largely the work of men writing for women: Maybe Dunham seems able to dispense with the fairy tale and show the rivalries and tensions among the four girls precisely because she is a woman.

There is no question that in the heralding of this spectacular young talent, Girls is a real sign of life for American culture—even if what Girls says about the condition of young Americans offers some cause for deep despair.

John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, is The Weekly Standard’s movie critic.