FILMFrances Ha
(15) 86mins
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Greta Gerwig spreads charm all over the place in this ode to gal pals and finding oneself lost in Manhattan.
REVIEW
“This apartment is very aware of itself,” says Sophie about the latest interim domicile that her pal - wanderlust gauche pixie Frances - calls home.
The apartment is very much like this film then, shot in black and white and so in love with Gauloises smoke-spiral cinema that it even takes its leading lady on a pointless trip to the French capital just to get some boulevard shots in the can.
That the leading lady is talented mumblecore clown Greta Gerwig disarms the cynics though.
In fact, I don't even know why I'm being churlish because this is a charming, funny visit to the ramshackle life of failed dancer, confused lover and frustrating friend Frances as she tries to find herself and her purpose among the boho chic of Manhattan.
Penned by kooky indie darling Gerwig herself and shot by hard-bitten partner Noah Baumbach, it's all very ying and yang.
The smart alec one-liners are punctuated by pratfalls, the pretensions never escape the tickle of a pinprick and the sweetness of the protagonist is undercut by the bitterness of the director who took nasty family breakdown to the arthouse crowd in The Squid And the Whale.
Many will find the quirkiness tooth-tingling, like too much sugar in the espresso. And not without reason because there's a fine line between gawky winsomeness and clattering irritation.
But, generally, as Frances skips and twirls from address to address, accruing calamities like packing cases, taking the blows and still dreaming in fairytales, everything becomes, weirdly, more authentic.
Amid Baumbach’s collages, fast-cut vignettes and indulgent portraits of his belle, characters emerge from behind their lines. They never quite escape their narrative niches but they have good hearts and earnest wishes.
Central to the piece is the platonic love affair between Sophie (Mickey Sumner) and Frances (“same person, different hair, we always say”). Frances dumps her boyfriend to stay with Sophie but the latter is lured away by thoughts of boys and betterment.
Without Sophie, Frances is lost and, although Sophie is far more together than her scattergun sometime bedmate, she is lost too, both trying to find each other in makeshift manques.
Like best friends who say sorry after, this film is sickeningly endearing and easy to forgive.
