Frances from Frances Ha is full of
joire-de-vivre, definably Iggy’s lust for life. She is infectiously optimistic
about her place in the big wide world of New York City, concerned about her
future as a dancer without allowing it to become a overwhelming worry. Perhaps
she’s more anxious about the rate at which her contemporary’s lives are
evolving both in terms of career and relationship, the perennial markers of
headway in a bourgeois society.
That contemporary comes, primarily, in the
form of her best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner, a daughter of Sting). They are
closely bonded having met at college then moved into an apartment together.
Essentially this picture is about how their friendship changes as each, with
varying degrees of success, relinquishes their younger carefree selves and take
on the adult stuffs of career and relationship.
Greta Gerwig is jubilantly hilarious as
Frances. She radiates the requisite optimism for Noah Baumbach’s character and
adeptly enacts the wince-inducing scrapes that Frances gets herself into.
Gerwig – who also writes – is the lifeblood of Frances Ha.
This is all shot in monochrome. Perhaps to
act as a generous counterpoint to the titular character’s vivacity or to
capture the suavity of early Godard, I’m not entirely sure. But Baumbach and
his cinematographer Sam Levy certainly encapsulate the bohemian cool of New
York City. There might even be a hint of fond satire for that hipster kind of
culture, something which is so intrinsically linked to New York. Either way
black and white photography, as always, looks cool. As is the rest of Frances
Ha: a charming watch and a bit twee but not in the emotionally shallow way –
twee in the coy sexy way.
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