Review: Frances Ha

Year: 2013
Director:  Noah Baumbach
Screenplay: Noah Baumbach, Gerta Gerwig
Starring: Gerta Gerwig

Synopsis is here:

As a so called film fan; I don’t think I should say this, but Frances Ha is my first Noah Baumbach movie. I’ve wanted to dig into his filmography in the past but I simply haven’t found time to investigate yet another director who’s assesses the prickly lives of privileged middle class America. You must believe me on this, as for some reason or another, I find myself very attracted to this sub genre.

I found myself thinking about how crafty Frances Ha actually is in its execution. Like the works of Whit Stillman, Sophia Coppola, Lena Dunham and of course the mumblecore movement, Frances Ha is a film that delves into the habits of people that we honestly believe have little to worry about. An awkward and self involved twenty-something struggling to sustain a bohemian lifestyle within New York City. Frances comes from a decent family, is college educated and living in what is considered one of the greatest cities. Living in a state of arrested development with her best friend Sophie, Frances is quite happy with this idle way of life until of course, Sophie finds love.

Unlike Whit Stillman’s annoyingly condescending Damsels in Distress (also starring Gerwig), Frances draws us in because she thinks she knows it all. She pretends to those who listen and when she’s found out (quickly) she still holds enough charm to want you to just give her a hug. She balances precariously between irritatingly annoying and that best friend who never grew up but was always fun to be around. To some she may grate for the 90 minutes, but I loved Frances happy go lucky charm. It’s hard not to feel jealous of her care free spirit, although you want to shake her for not “growing up”.

This said, why should she grow up? Baumbach’s film wryly highlights the economic strain that is now beginning to press the moderately middle class as much as the poor. Frances may be scatty, but what we realise from her interactions with the people around her, even working hard in her creative outlet wouldn’t help things. Frances Ha is more of a character study than a political indictment, but knowing that Frances is coming of age defiantly in front of the sour faces of people that have very little to worry about, has a certain charm about it.

A playful homage to the French New Wave, Woody Allen’s Manhattan and the current America lo fi independents, Frances Ha’s look and feel (along with its casting) make sure it’s not as slick as Joe Swanberg’s sweet but knowing Drinking Buddies but holds a warmth and earnestly about its characters that many female lead movies sorely lack. Romance is hinted at but isn’t the be all and end all of Frances life. She’s just as gawky as the boys and while men come in and out of the frame of the story, they do not define the tale.

From a narrative standpoint, I fear those who need a more solid structure may be driven mad by Baumbach’s wandering plot. However France Ha is rich in other ways, such Sam Levy’s gorgeous black and white cinematography, which feels like the only way you could present a life like Miss Halladay. Meanwhile Gerwig performance improves upon her Hannah takes the stairs persona, giving us a much more rounded character from those we’ve seen from her before.

Frances not easy to like but has a persistence in her character that bites at the ankles like a terrier. This is a film fuelled on its distinctive sense of humour, its deceptively optimistic tone and a lead performance which has energy in spades. Frances Ha may be monochrome in conception, but like the lead character, it’s full of colour.

Review: Drinking Buddies

Year: 2013

Director: Joe Swanberg

Screenplay: Joe Swanberg

Starring: Olivia Wilde, Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick, Ron Livingstone

Synopsis is here:

It would be easy to consider Drinking Buddies as “mumblecore getting an upgrade, but that would be a little bit of a lie. It’s been just over a decade since this wave of naturalistic, low-fi films first appeared with 2002’s noble but uneven Funny Ha Ha. However the sub-genre has been making leaps and jumps with every other entry, and much of the mumblecore crew have made themselves known names. Greta Gerwig looks set to be a generation’s indie queen. Mark Duplass has been making me guffaw in The League and Lena Dunham?  Well let’s just say Girls may become one of the most important female driven series of the tweenies (is that what we call this decade?)

That said, Drinking Buddies is a large jump from my previous viewings of Swanberg’s earlier work. While you’d be hard pressed to find a U.K copy of Kissing on the Mouth, with its rawer than butcher’s meat look at sex and relationships, Drinking Buddies has the kind of gloss that will make less adventurous film fans feel right at home. The film also features a cast that just wouldn't be seen in Swanberg’s earlier films. Credit should go to Swanberg’s prolific work and plaudits here, as now his work can commend stronger, more accomplished actors for his work (Gerwig aside of course).

The cleaner aesthetic and cast are certainly a shock for a viewer who knows Swanberg for his smaller works and not necessarily for the better. Thematically Drinking Buddies is still the kind of white first world problems I find myself oddly attached to (Yet, I’m cold to Richard Curtis...go figure), but the jump from the rugged, D.I.Y feel, to something more mainstream is a large jump and a jarring one. Not everyone will have this issue, but what excited me so often about the mumblecore movement was how the messiness of the characters lives seemed mirrored within the aesthetic. The upgrade in style does not mesh as well as before. It may just be me, but something feels missing from the piece and I really believe it’s this. Then again my favourites of the sub-genre (In Search of a Midnight Kiss, Medicine for Melancholy) have a keener visual eye than perhaps Swanberg, who appears focused on the improv work between the characters.

Like many of the mumblecore movies I’ve seen, I do enjoy how characters interact and develop. The female characters in particular. While the men are often the schluby, slacker types that we often find everywhere in romantic media these days (note the perfectly cast Jake Johnson from New Girl), the women hold a sense of control and emotion that I always find appealing. They’re smart but not always right, emotional but not needlessly hysterical. I find that if I take a dislike to girls like Olivia Wilde’s Kate (the best performance I’ve viewed from the actress), it’s never for long and it’s mostly because they truly have an amount of control that doesn’t feel held by what we expect a female character should do.  Swanberg’s choice on a heavily improvised screenplay is effective. Emotional moments turn on a sixpence, even if not as strong as previously seen.  

Drinking Buddies does work, despite the shellshock of its more commercial aspects. There’s no doubt that there is something taken away from before and that the same roughness that had me drawn to these kinds of films is missed. It’s clear from the films affectionate look at fragile foundations of bosom buddies, that this is not Swanberg “selling out” in the conventional sense. Yet give me a store brought video camera and a few actors that don’t nail there scenes as well as Anna Kendrick does, and I feel there would be something even stronger. 

Review: Damsels in Distress

Year: 2012
Director: Whit Stillman
Screenplay: Whit Stillman
Starring: Gretra Gerwig, Adam Brody

Synopsis is here

In the past year, I've found myself indulging in the pleasures of not only the lo-fi neurosis of the mumblecore movement, but also the stuffy, repressed, Allen-esque films of Whit Stillman. Both stables deal with the same conceit: middle class, privileged white 20 somethings whom have a hard time with dealing not only their career aspirations, but intimacy. Stillman's yuppie features (including the Oscar winning Metropolitan and The Last Days of Disco) seem to be the precursor to the mumblecore movement. In fact it's hard to think of the likes of The OC, Dawsons Creek or mumblecore without looking back at Stillman.

So it is no surprise to me that Damsels in Distress not only features The OC's Adam Brody, but mumblecore startled Greta Gerwig. It is a shame however that Stillmans film doesn't supply them with a strong enough film. Damsels is a near story-less piece which feels more like a Stillman caricature than anything else. Before, I was happy to see such naive characters wrapped in the bubbles of 80's and 90's New York, or even the sunny sights of Barcelona. However here in this contemporary setting, everything feels flat.

Things start off well, with the idea that Gerwigs clan appearing to be what would happen if the plastics from Mean Girls grew up to be pretentious. Their empty headed babbling on fashion, scent and hippie self improvement are droll to say the least, with Gerwig riffing on Kate Beckingsales character from The
Last Days of Disco. This film is also wonderfully framed at times, bathing these girls in sunlight as they blather their own self importance. The irony is not missed as these girls talk naively about using dance to stop suicide subject, considering themselves angels at the same time. However this mixture of pompous air headedness is difficult to take as the film is trapped in its own bubble. No different from other Stillman film apart from one thing...it's setting.

While sparsely funny, much of Damsels comes off stilted and false, from the protracted way the characters speak, to the situation as a whole. The chemistry between the characters feels forced, as if Stillman was trying to shove all the elements from previous films into this contemporary setting. While the pomp conservatism that filled his previous films, matched the settings well, here they just don't ring true.

Damsels also lacks a decent plot to grab hold of. The vignette like structure, sways from mildly watchable to flat out dull. Yet it never steadies on something truly solid for investment. Some of these boys and girls need more to do, otherwise, why are we watching them and why do we care? Even the likes of Funny Ha Ha or Hannah takes the Stairs, give the female leads roles an earnestness to cling on to despite the vague plots that lie within their films. These Damsels lack such an aspect and it really shows.

Gerwig is fine in a role I feel that she could do in her sleep, while the supporting cast do their best with very little, however Damsels pales in front of the very shows and films that were seemingly inspired by Stillman's work. It feels that everyone has moved on while Whit is still trying to shoehorn certain ideals in. Ideals which still exist, but have mutated since the eighties

In my opinion, Damsels is the weakest Stillman yet and has little of flair and fun that littered previous films. Metropolis still stands out as his best work and it's easy to see why. The world as simply moved on.