By Nicholas Ware
Twitter
Growing up is tough to do, a fact that both literature and film has reminded us over and over again from The Wizard of Oz through To Kill A Mockingbird and even, to an extent, the Harry Potter series. However, perhaps it is the French New Wave, spearheaded by Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series, that reminded us that growing up is hard to do even when you're already "grown up." Frances Ha, a collaboration between writer-director Noah Baumbach and writer-star Greta Gerwig (both of whom have been making variations on coming-of-age films for years), successfully mines the emotional yearning, dazed sense of a life unlived, and wry humor of those French New Wave films. In doing so, Baumbach and Gerwig create a film better than any of their previous, separate attempts. Frances Ha is funny, relateable, brisk, true, and above all specific in a way that only very personal independent filmmaking can be.
The film's title character is played by Gerwig in a lived-in performance that would be unfailingly charming if the character weren't such a charming failure. Frances is a real nightmare, emphasis on the real: a 27-year-old who is not quite good enough at what she thinks she wants to do and not quite brave enough (or too stubborn) to try something else. In the opening scene, Frances avoids moving in with her boyfriend for reasons that don't quite make sense, a recurring description for many of her choices. Instead, Frances invests in her BFF relationship with Sophie (Mickey Sumner, Sting's daughter) who seems, superficially, to have it a little more together than Frances. What follows for Frances is a series of friendships found and fractured, addresses occupied and abandoned, and humor that manages to be both sad and hilarious. It's so easy to laugh at Frances because she's such a mess, but it's hard to laugh at her because she's the kind of mess we all secretly (or not-so-secretly) are or have been. To say the film hinges entirely upon the skills of Greta Gerwig is no exaggeration; every scene is a Frances scene, and every move the film makes only works if the audience feels the way Frances feels. The interactions Frances has with her friends and colleagues are uncomfortable, but not in an embarrassed Michael-Scott-in-The-Office sort of way. Rather they're uncomfortable because they are honest, and the honest misunderstandings, mistakes, and rejections that occur between people are simultaneously cripplingly sad and blurtingly funny, and Gerwig plays right down the middle of that line to perfection.
Growing up is tough to do, a fact that both literature and film has reminded us over and over again from The Wizard of Oz through To Kill A Mockingbird and even, to an extent, the Harry Potter series. However, perhaps it is the French New Wave, spearheaded by Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series, that reminded us that growing up is hard to do even when you're already "grown up." Frances Ha, a collaboration between writer-director Noah Baumbach and writer-star Greta Gerwig (both of whom have been making variations on coming-of-age films for years), successfully mines the emotional yearning, dazed sense of a life unlived, and wry humor of those French New Wave films. In doing so, Baumbach and Gerwig create a film better than any of their previous, separate attempts. Frances Ha is funny, relateable, brisk, true, and above all specific in a way that only very personal independent filmmaking can be.
The film's title character is played by Gerwig in a lived-in performance that would be unfailingly charming if the character weren't such a charming failure. Frances is a real nightmare, emphasis on the real: a 27-year-old who is not quite good enough at what she thinks she wants to do and not quite brave enough (or too stubborn) to try something else. In the opening scene, Frances avoids moving in with her boyfriend for reasons that don't quite make sense, a recurring description for many of her choices. Instead, Frances invests in her BFF relationship with Sophie (Mickey Sumner, Sting's daughter) who seems, superficially, to have it a little more together than Frances. What follows for Frances is a series of friendships found and fractured, addresses occupied and abandoned, and humor that manages to be both sad and hilarious. It's so easy to laugh at Frances because she's such a mess, but it's hard to laugh at her because she's the kind of mess we all secretly (or not-so-secretly) are or have been. To say the film hinges entirely upon the skills of Greta Gerwig is no exaggeration; every scene is a Frances scene, and every move the film makes only works if the audience feels the way Frances feels. The interactions Frances has with her friends and colleagues are uncomfortable, but not in an embarrassed Michael-Scott-in-The-Office sort of way. Rather they're uncomfortable because they are honest, and the honest misunderstandings, mistakes, and rejections that occur between people are simultaneously cripplingly sad and blurtingly funny, and Gerwig plays right down the middle of that line to perfection.
Frances Ha opens today at the Enzian. Rated R for sexual references and language. Run time 1 hour 26 minutes.
Also enjoy this music video for David Bowie's "Modern Love," which features prominently in the trailer above and about halfway through Frances Ha.
