Movie Review - Frances Ha

Frances Ha (2013)

Starring Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Michael Zegen, Adam Driver, and Charlotte D'Amboise

Directed by Noah Baumbach

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Reviewers are certainly telling me I should like Frances Ha, a black-and-white modern-day female-focused New York City-set Annie Hall-ish (or Manhattan-ish) take on our title character, a dancer struggling to make ends meet who lackadaisically sits around and talks about absolutely nothing that matters to her obnoxiously arrogant and self-important friends.  As you can likely tell by the tone of that run-on sentence, I'm not going to be fawning over Frances Ha.  Despite attempts by Greta Gerwig -- who co-wrote this film with director Noah Baumbach -- to charm the audience, I ultimately felt annoyed by her character's self-absorbtion...and I think that's the opposite reaction they were attempting to achieve.

Ultimately, Frances Ha has no story and what little story it does have isn't all that interesting because we don't really give a damn about anyone in it.  Admittedly, I summed the proceedings up in my initial sentence.  Frances is a dancer who's barely making ends meet and moves from friend's apartment to friend's apartment while she tries to get her life in order.  It's all well and good, but her friends aren't all that interesting and their conversations are even more boring.

Ugh.  Greta Gerwig tries and she has moments where she's captivating, but I can't help but think she's not an actress I'm going to enjoy.  This is movie #6 of hers that I've watched and I've yet to rank any of them as any better than average.  Frances Ha won't be the one to break that lackluster streak.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-