Review: Frances Ha (2013)

[Mark Leeper]

FRANCES HA
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: There is not a lot of plot to this account of
a dancer in her late twenties looking to better her
existence by being connected to professional dancing
and find an appropriate place to live and someone to
live with. This is very minimalist storytelling much
of which feels improvised in front of the camera. The
film is more of a character situation than a character
story. Greta Gerwig stars and co-writes with director
Noah Baumbach. Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4) or 5/10

What can you say about a film in which the warmest and most
enjoyable sequences are those scored with Georges Delarue's music
for KING OF HEARTS? I don't remember what was happening at the
time, but the music was better than the story.

Greta Gerwig plays Frances, who is entering her late twenties and
for the first time is finding out that her dreams of being a great
innovative artistic dancer just are not going to happen the way she
had planned. The rubber is just starting to meet the road. For
the first time, she does not get a part in a show she wants. Her
lifelong best friend and occasional lover Sophie (played by Mickey
Sumner) is going to move out of the apartment they share and is
going to live with a boyfriend. Until now Sophie was someone she
could run through the Manhattan streets with and could urinate on
subway tracks with. (Charming.) Now all the cotter pins that held
Frances's life together are being pulled out and the life is
falling apart.

Frances is looking for financial stability and a chance to use her
skills as a professional dancer. The model for the film seems to
be Woody Allen's MANHATTAN. Like MANHATTAN the film is shot in
monochrome. The plot is not strong, but the dialog seems to be the
film's focus. Instead of a cute Woody Allen we have Gerwig whose
charm is present more in theory than in actual fact. The character
is in her late twenties and her personality is mostly likable but
verges on the obnoxious and has perhaps intentionally just an edge
of desperation. Certainly her cuteness seems a little strained
when it is so often tracking shots of Gerwig running on the street.

Director Noah Baumbach (THE SQUID AND THE WHALE) says he tries to
tell a big chunk of the story with each scene, but that is not that
useful if overall the story does not progress. Too many of her
gags end with the viewer asking what was the point of that scene.
In one sequence Frances is taking a male friend to dinner and when
she goes to pay, the card is rejected. She leaves her friend at
the table and runs out to find an ATM machine. It is hard to find
so we have a lot of Gerwig's trademark running through streets.
This causes her to fall down, and when she returns to the
restaurant she finds she is slightly bleeding. So she takes care
of her injury. I was first saying to myself "And ...?" When we
move on to the next sequence and this one does not seem to impact
anything I now am left asking "So ...?" The idea seems to be that
we are so entranced by Gerwig that we want to know everything that
happens to her. Perhaps it need not come together for the Tweet
generation. We are expected to just be enough entranced by
Gerwig's physical and floppy graceful style that that is
sufficient. I rate FRANCES HA a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or
5/10.

Film Credits: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2347569/ combined>

What others are saying:
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ frances_ha_2013/>


Mark R. Leeper
mle...@optonline.net
Copyright 2013 Mark R. Leeper