Every Friday Chris hand-selects a streaming recommendation for your weekend.
This Week’s Featured Flick
Frances Ha on Netflix
THE TRAILER
THE DETAILS
DIRECTOR: Noah Baumbach
WRITERS: Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig
CAST: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Michael Zegen, Adam Driver, Josh Hamilton
GENRE: Comedy
RUNTIME: 86 min
YEAR: 2013
THE PLOT
Determined to make it as a modern dancer in New York, Frances (Gerwig) pursues her unlikely goal with more enthusiasm than natural talent.
THE REASON
Noah Baumbach has had his ups and downs as a writer/director. His debut feature, Kicking and Screaming, showed remarkable promise when he made it at the age of 26. But by the time he made Margot at the Wedding twelve years later it looked like his vibrant youthful cynicism had shriveled into something darker and less palatable. That film felt like an impotent attempt to pull off some Cassavetes-level-shit. Baumbach used to assault viewers with endless dry, quotable lines that get funnier each time hear them. Now he was assaulting them with nothing but sadness and bitterness.
Then while making Greenberg (a film about a profoundly sad and bitter man, of course) Baumbach discovered his muse and got struck his second wind. Greta Gerwig only has a supporting role in Greenberg, but she stood out enough to make me giddy with excitement when it was announced that she would star in and co-write his next film.
Shot on consumer grade DSLR cameras, and rendered in beautiful, noisy black and white, this Frances Ha has a light-on-its-feet old world charm to it that certainly owes a debt to Woody Allen’s Manhattan, yet it stands out in its own right as a stunning return to form for Baumbach. Gerwig’s titular Frances is an aimless 20-something with just enough ambition to declare goals she never intends to accomplish. She speaks without a filter and commits seemingly fortuitous acts that may provoke you to view parts of this film from between your fingers. Overall, Frances is a total clustercuss, but there’s still something about her that is endearing. Coming off of Greenberg, which I thoroughly loved, I found the optimism at the heart of Frances Ha to be refreshing.
Gerwig is joined on screen by Adam Driver of GIrls and soon-to-be Star Wars: The Force Awakens fame, Mickey Sumner and Michael Zegen. They all give stellar, natural and humerous performances. And if you’re a fan of Kicking and Screaming, keep an eye out for a small role by that film’s star, Josh Hamilton.
WATCH NOW ON NETFLIX
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