Frances Ha

When I was in college, A New Yorker article turned me on to the films of Andrew Bujalski and Joe Swanberg, the key directors in the "mumblecore" movement.  Mumblecore is a somewhat meaningless term that has since been applied to any independent film that stars twenty-somethings.  Bujalski and Swanberg themselves didn't like the term.  But the style of filmmaking they pioneered was extremely radical, and it certainly deserved to be given a title.  Their films were a revelation for me - here were actors speaking and behaving, to use a cliche, nothing like actors, and more like people I would meet every day at Reed.  Both directors use largely improvised scenes and dialogue, but have the aesthetic sense to create something beautiful and raw with it.

Bujalski started the movement (his first film Funny Ha Ha came out in 2002), but has only released three films - a fourth is coming out this summer.  The first two are excellent, but since then his style has evolved into something that is still great, but slightly less unique.  Swanberg has been incredibly prolific - he put out 6 feature-length films in 2011 alone - but his later films can be difficult to see due to a general lack of availability on DVD.

Hannah Takes the Stairs was the first mumblecore film I saw, and it remains my favorite.  For a long time, I attributed to Bujalski, but in fact it's Swanberg's, although Bujalski stars in it.  The real star of that movie, who shows up in all of Swanberg's best (see Nights and Weekends and LOL), is the incredible Greta Gerwig.

All of this is meant to preface my thoughts on the movie Frances Ha, which stars Gerwig, who also cowrote the screenplay with the director, Noah Baumbach.  This terrific movie is certainly not mumblecore - it was made with a strong script and exacting directorial vision.  However, Gerwig's character shares a lot of similarities with the one in Hannah Takes the Stairs, with a slightly more happy-go-lucky bent.  And I'm pleased that Gerwig's amazing acting style has survived her emergence a few years ago into the mainstream, since she has a naturalness that is truly unique and always fun to watch.

My only complaint with the movie is that Baumbach's story arcs are always a bit conventional, even if the way that he approaches them is not.  This is very much a movie about a girl who is failing at life, until she finally figures shit out.  But the character herself makes the movie great.

My local theater is awesome enough that it had a Skype Q and A with Gerwig after the film.  Clare asked a great question, but I couldn't, because I wasn't sure how I was going to do so without gushing about how much I love her past films.  But someone did ask her about her mumblecore films, and she made it clear that she was happy with the direction her career is going - word on the street is that she has yet another movie with Baumbach in the works.