FRANCES HA (2013)

Frances Ha (2013)

Starring Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner and Adam Driver

Directed by Noah Baumbach

An IFC Films Release

MPAA Theatrical Rating: R

Noah Baumbach's latest is a coming of age story like few others. Rather than highlight an adolescent waking up to the harsh reality of adulthood, Baumbach and co-writer/star Greta Gerwig focus on an awkward, stunted 27 year old whose free-spirited artist routine isn't cute anymore. Gerwig plays Frances, a dancer who is too old to be budding and too struggling to be hopeful. She can't sustain a relationship, she can barely keep up with rent, and she's the only person who still thinks that she will make it as a dancer. She's full of spirit, though, so she's likable if not sympathetic.

Frances needs to get her shit together, something even a younger girl she meets at a party notices. She's in an awkward place where her peers are getting married, building careers, having kids, and transitioning from the world of all-night benders to conversational dinner parties, and she isn't ready for any of it. Gerwig keeps Frances real without ever dipping into melodramatic highs or lows. Baumbach shoots the film in intimate black and white that seems to squeeze maximum cringe out of every uncomfortable scene.

These people and their stories can get tedious. Watching people with such privileged concerns seems trivial, but then, these are the concerns in most of our lives. In the end I recognized the charm in the story of Frances finding her way in the world, even if she was still only stumbling towards it by the film's final frame.

With Michael Esper, Michael Zegen, and Patrick Heusinger.

-MJ