We’re not in Manhattan anymore, Toto! A far cry from “Sex and the City”, which chronicled the fabulous lives of four single women, Lena Dunham (from left), Zosia Mamet and Jemima Kirke are Brooklyn-dwelling “Girls” in the new HBO show, which gives a grittier take on the topic. (Jojo Whilden)
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Sitting with her parents in a New York restaurant, Hannah Horvath is shoveling spaghetti into her mouth like it’s her last meal. The 24-year-old “Girls” character wears no makeup, and has no style or any money. But — as she goes on to explain — at least her book is almost half-finished.
“I’ve done four of the essays . . . and my hope is that it’s gonna be nine, but, you know, it’s a memoir, so I have to live them first,” she says.
Suddenly, her mom drops a bomb — Hannah’s parents are not going to “keep bankrolling [her] groovy lifestyle” any longer.
“But I have no job,” Hannah whines, shocked at the thought of having to pay her own way.
“We’ve been supporting you for two years, and that’s enough,” her mom replies.
So begins “Girls,” the highly anticipated HBO show premiering at 10:30 Sunday, which depicts life for young women in New York City. Written, directed by and starring Lena Dunham as Hannah, the show tracks four college grads trying to navigate jobs, men and friendship. But unlike its spiritual sister, “Sex and the City,” which HBO premiered 14 years ago, this show’s characters aren’t living in posh pads, wearing designer duds and dating moguls.
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The girls of “Girls” live in Greenpoint, not Greenwich Village, and wear consignment-shop clothes, not Christian Dior. Instead of a lofty career writing for Vogue at $4 a word like Carrie Bradshaw, they’re just hoping for an internship that pays, well, anything. While “Sex and the City” showed single women who brunched, the “Girls” girls can only afford to stay in New York if they skip lunch.
Cut from the umbilical cord, Hannah goes groveling to her boss at the publishing house where she works, hoping to finally get paid.
“As you know, I have been working here for over a year,” she tells him.
“Well, you are an invaluable part of our operation,” he replies.
Hannah plows on: “My circumstances have changed, and I can no longer afford to work for free.”
His response: “Oh, Hannah, I am so sorry to lose you.”
In “Girls, ” scenes like this show an unvarnished New York existence never imagined by Carrie Bradshaw & Co. And young New York women say the situations the show tackles are funny and painful — because they’re true.
“It’s so much more realistic than ‘Sex and the City’ ever was,” says Leigh Stein, 27, author of “The Fallback Plan,” a novel about life after college. “ ‘Sex and the City’ was romantic and fantastical. I love ‘Girls’ because it’s so realistic — it’s totally accurate about life in New York City.”
Whereas “Sex and the City,” which ran from 1998 to 2004, taught a generation of New York City women how to dress, think and even drink, “Girls” holds up a mirror to young women who are broke, confused, inexperienced and desperately trying to get it right.
And while each “SATC” episode began with a question Carrie posed to her computer and ended with a neat answer tied up in a silk Hermes scarf, “Girls” doesn’t offer any solutions.
“ ‘Girls’ depicts a life in which young women aren’t sure what they want their lives to be, and they’re engaging in exploration and experimentation. It’s not telling you how to get a happier life. It’s saying: ‘This is how scary life actually is,’ ” says Karen Hornick, a literature professor at NYU who focuses on television and cultural history.
And while “Sex and the City” shocked with its plot lines about vibrators, oral sex and same-sex love affairs, “Girls” — produced, like “Bridesmaids,” by Judd Apatow — pushes the erotic high jinks past even Samantha’s comfort zone.
Hannah’s boyfriend Adam, for example, makes her pretend she’s an 11-year-old junkie he found on the street while they have sex. She gets HPV, obsesses over AIDS and cracks a rape joke during a job interview. Her boyfriend gets off by hitting her in the sack; Hannah has the bruises to prove it.
She does find solace in her circle of friends: Marnie (Allison Williams), a buttoned-up and beautiful receptionist at an art gallery; Jessa (Jemima Kirke), an unconventional Brit with flowing blond hair and fluid philosophies who baby-sits when she’s not traveling the world; and Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet), the baby of the crew, who’s still in school and speaks in total text talk (obvs).
“I have a lot of female students who will see themselves reflected in ‘Girls,’ ” says Hornick.
Stein says she has a friend just like Hannah — someone who “is writing a memoir, and her parents are paying her to do it.”
“Hannah is such a typical New York writer — she just talks about her book all the time, but hasn’t finished it or made any money off it,” she says.
The misguided romantic relationship between Adam and Hannah also hits uncomfortably close to home. With the fantasy of a Mr. Big nowhere on the horizon, Adam, an unemployed actor/woodworker subsidized by his grandmother is actually a realistic option.
Elizabeth Keating, a 25-year-old talent agent, says she knows “a million unemployed musician types who get girls all the time and treat them appallingly. Unemployed drummers always have girls flocking to them.”
“Even girls with liberal-arts educations who consider themselves feminists still go after bad-boy drummers in Bushwick,” adds Stein.
The creators of “Girls” have insisted that their show is not the new “Sex and the City.” But it’s safe to say “Girls” couldn’t exist without “SATC” — it’s like the older series’ twisted younger sister, who likes watching “Seinfeld.”
“In a lot of ways, Hannah is more like George Costanza than Carrie Bradshaw,” says Hornick. “There are lots of parallels to ‘Sex and the City,’ but the humor [of ‘Girls’] is really dark.”
scohen@nypost.com