Review: While We’re Young

Year: 2014 (U.K release 2015)

Director: Noah Baumbach

Screenplay: Noah Baumbach

Starring: Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried.

Synopsis is here:

There’s a sequence in While We're Young, which cemented my indifference for the movie quite early on. Cornelia (Naomi Watts) decides to go with her newly found young friend Darby (Amanda Seyfried) to Hip Hop dance class. Of course, this is a chance for us to laugh at a forty plus year old Watts, struggle to get to grips with the urban beats placed in front of her. My ire was found in the choice of song: Hit 'em Up by 2Pac. In this tale of white privileged New Yorkers, why has writer/director Noah Baumbach picked one of the most infamous west coast rap songs, which verbally attacks one of New York’s most iconic rappers?

Is Baumbach mocking the cultural appropriation which appears to be widespread throughout certain areas of America? Then the likes of Lena Dunham or the Portlandia guys are currently killing this right now. Is he remarking on the idea of cultural piracy in the same way that Adam Driver does in the film, in which all pop culture once released can be pre-packaged and re-issued under the ironic guise of one’s own idea? Then it’s irritatingly smug. Especially with a Beastie Boy (Adam Horovitz) in the cast. Either way, Baumbach’s oh-so-cynical film feels forced. Its U.K release coincides with the release of racial melting pot Furious 7 (2015), and unintentionally seems to suggest “don’t worry about all the money Universal have made with their little car movie, these rich, white problems are so much more important.

I’m not usually so cold with a film such as this, but Baumbach’s commentary on the film's cultural hipsters, snarkily stealing, then reconstructing material to create some sort of faux truth, annoyed me. Mostly because I found myself picking at the films own references and feeling they’ve been witnessed in more piercing films. From the Woody Allen posturing (himself a deft craftsman at reshaping homage) to The Graduate (1967) motif ending. The film feels unearned in its entirety. It misses the exuberance and vulnerability I found depicted in his previous feature; Frances Ha (2013), yet holds a triteness that the film itself is trying to rally against.

The film does look to want to make a serious point of child-free couples who are happy without children, as well as the fleeting beauty and impudence of youth that is lost upon the couples we observe. Despite the films more serious aspects of the predictable plot strolling in late. As Stiller and Watts’ Josh and Cornelia find themselves hurtling towards middle age, the film does hold some wry remarks about growing old, losing that youthful hunger and finding one’s self within adult life, something that we all will face in our own time.

However, maybe because I’m seeing far too much of this in real time with all the Timehop’s on my social network feeds. Perhaps the fact that I rewatched the far more affecting Synecdoche, New York (2008) recently, hampered my ability to connect with the film on its own terms. I can’t, however, shake off the feeling that those tugging feelings of regret have been far more memorable than here, in which we rewatch an admittedly on form Stiller, do the on-edge and self-absorbed shtick once more, albeit in a more mature form. Growing up is hard to do. 

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.