Lena Dunham Is Looking To Make A Period Period Piece

This article will probably have a couple of ugly comments about Lena Dunham. It's weird - she doesn't say or do anything particularly outre, and Girls is very good and not particularly out there or obscure, but people just hate her. It's almost like they have a visceral reaction to a woman being successful. So weird. It's almost like there's a latin Greek-rooted word for this kind of thing.

Anyway, successful and funny writer and director Lena Dunham is thinking about returning to the movies, where she got her start with the film Tiny Furniture. Her plan: to write, and hopefully direct, an adaptation of the YA novel Catherine, Called Birdy. What's it about? Dunham sums it up:

[She] gets her period and her father basically says, ‘Well, it’s time for you to get married,’ and she’s like, ‘Uh, no.’ But it’s hyper realistic and really pretty and it’s full of incest and beatings, but it’s a child’s story. I’ve been obsessed with it since I was a kid.

Maybe we need more context. It's set in 1290 on an English manor house, and the lead character is the daughter of a medieval nobleman. The book is told from the point of view of 14 year old Catherine's diary as she tries to run off the many suitors her father brings home for her. Along the way the book highlights lots of stuff about daily like in medieval England, such as the preponderance of flees and apparently all the beatings and incest. 

It sounds like a great match for Dunham, and I'd like to see her bring that semi-verite style she's developed to a period piece. Mostly I'm excited to see Dunham return to cinema.