‘I don’t suppose I’ve that in me’: what was Lena Dunham’s deserted Polly Pocket film really going to contain?

Heartbreaking information from Hollywood: Lena Dunham is not concerned within the forthcoming Polly Pocket film. Chatting with the New Yorker, Dunham revealed she dropped out of the challenge as a result of “I don’t suppose I’ve that in me.”

Clearly, there’s a lot to unpack right here. The primary is, Christ, they’re going to make a Polly Pocket film. Individuals in Hollywood noticed the success of Barbie and instantly began scouting round for different vaguely nostalgic toys that they might make a film out of. And the truth that they initially selected Lena Dunham to jot down, direct and produce factors to an excellent higher cynicism, as if some otherworldly algorithm had analysed Barbie and decided that the key key to replicating its historic field workplace success was merely “toy plus feminism”.

But it surely appears like Lena Dunham isn’t having it. Increasing on her resolution, she advised the New Yorker “I wrote a script, and I used to be engaged on it for 3 years. However I keep in mind somebody as soon as stated to me about Nancy Meyers … that in some way her style manages to intersect completely with what the world desires.”

She continued: “I don’t suppose I’ve that in me. I really feel like the subsequent film I make must really feel like a film that I completely must make. Nobody however me might make it. And I did suppose different folks might make Polly Pocket.”

Though this in all probability hints at barely extra behind-the-scenes turmoil than she’s letting on – studying between the traces it seems that Mattel has spent the previous few years flattening Dunham’s script into one thing blander than she initially needed – it’s very gracious of her to understand that different folks may be capable to make a movie a few pretty small plastic doll. Certainly, they have already got. Simply take a look at 2006’s animated PollyWorld, through which Polly Pocket realises that her potential new stepmother is egocentric and merciless, and reacts by vowing to have the perfect weekend ever. Somebody apart from Lena Dunham made that.

Nonetheless, PollyWorld existed in a pre-Barbie panorama, when it was sufficient to only take a toy and put it in a film. Barbie modified all that. Now any film a few toy has to primarily be an ironic exploration of the sophisticated legacy of the toy. Dunham’s Polly Pocket film was by no means going to be set on the earth of Polly Pocket, a vaguely outlined mythology through which Polly was apparently typically the mayor of Pollyville.

As an alternative, it was going to be a few “younger lady and a pocket-sized lady who type a friendship.” Like Barbie, it was going to be an precise toy who needed to navigate the actual world in all its horrible complexity. Perhaps there would have been a scene the place Polly Pocket witnesses violence, or unethical company behaviour, or vivisection. We simply don’t know.

Nonetheless, good for Lena Dunham. She’s a gifted, knotty author who understands that she doesn’t have the mass enchantment essential to create what sounds an terrible lot just like the Mac and Me to Barbie’s ET The movie she makes subsequent will likely be uniquely hers, and never the type of watered-down Greta Gerwig Xerox that producers appear to be after.

This isn’t dangerous information for Polly Pocket, both. Don’t overlook that the Barbie film additionally went via numerous iterations earlier than it landed on its remaining type. At one level Diablo Cody was writing it. At one level it was going to star Amy Schumer; at one other Anne Hathaway was going to play Barbie. The identical factor will nearly definitely occur to Polly Pocket. It can bounce round artistic groups for some time earlier than touchdown on a author and director so excellent that you simply’ll overlook Lena Dunham was ever concerned.

Who is aware of what the movie will find yourself like. Maybe it is going to transfer on from Barbie by specializing in a unique sociopolitical ideology. Maybe it will likely be an exploration of the rising menace of rightwing populism, or ethnic separatism or post-classical anarchy. Both approach, the Polly Pocket film will find yourself being the factor it was at all times destined to be: a movie a few vary of mass-produced toys that you simply vaguely keep in mind proudly owning as a baby however haven’t any deep emotional reference to. Who might ask for extra?