Funny Girl: Desiree Akhavan on Her Hilarious Indie Breakup Comedy, <em>Appropriate Behavior,</em> and Her Guest Role on <em>Girls</em> — vogue.com

Desiree Akhavan has been labeled a lot of things. The next Lena Dunham. Brooklyn’s next big indie filmmaker. The first bisexual Iranian-American to make it big. But after watching her debut film, Appropriate Behavior, which opens in theaters in New York this weekend, it’s clear that the 30-year-old talent defies easy classification. A hit at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, Appropriate Behavior, which Akhavan wrote, directed, and stars in, explores the end of a relationship between Shirin (Akhavan) and her girlfriend through a series of flashbacks, much in the vein of Annie Hall or High Fidelity. “I thought, What if we opened with their breakup,” she said by phone recently. “And then fall in love with them 30 minutes into the film?” In addition to being one of the better breakup movies in a while, Appropriate Behavior provides a witty look into second-generation immigrant culture, Brooklyn fastidiousness, modern sexuality, and delayed adulthood.

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