Frances Ha: Movie Review

Frances Ha: Movie Review

Cast: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Michael Esper, Adam Driver.
Director: Noah Baumbach

Frances Ha is Great Gerwig and Noah Baumbach's contribution to hipsterdom. 

And quite frankly, it feels in places like it tries too hard to be as cool as it wants to. 

Gerwig is Frances, a dancer in New York, whose bohemian and drifter lifestyle means she moves from flat to flat and life to life after her soulmate Sophie (Sting's daughter Mickey Sumner) decides she wants to move out to an address she's always wanted to go to. 

Devastated from the split, Frances finds her life lacks focus and meaning as she moves from one address to another, always trying to get on and always seeking some form of validation from her friends and suffering from a lack of being able to move on in life. 

Shot in black and white and deliberately going for a certain audience, I personally found Gerwig's Frances and her ilk insufferable and annoying; that's not to say though that Gerwig isn't astoundingly good and charming in the role; this flighty girl is quirky and therefore awkward in places. 

During a massive run to get cash from an ATM, Frances falls over while dashing back - for no reason other than to emphasise her awkwardness. It's these try hard moments which are peppered throughout which irritate rather than endear. 

Which is a real shame as there are moments of dialogue and banter which sparkle and shine with naturalness and freshness, fully encapsulating the feckless nature of youth and the nether years when we flounder between no longer being a child but not quite an adult as we make our way through the world. 

A Christmas jaunt home to Sacramento with family gives Frances some much needed warmth which is lost during other dinner encounters with flatmates and friends thereof, but as a series of snapshots of life in New York, there will be those who utterly adore Frances and her quirkiness; unfortunately, I am not one of them and was left irritated by the shallowness of the film, and the annoying nature of Frances.

Perfectly serviceable, relatively light and charmingly put together, Frances Ha is a film which will be beloved by a fair few and embraced indifferently by others.

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