From her earliest mumblecore movies, something about Greta Gerwig didn’t quite fit the scene. Here were these lo-fi indie efforts (including LOL, Hannah Takes the Stairs, and Baghead), nobly scruffy around the edges, intended as the antitheses of Hollywood—and right in the middle of them was a movie star.
Hard to miss it: Gerwig may have been an unknown, but she had crack timing and silent-movie eyes. Despite the best efforts of all concerned, she jumped off the screen at you. Non-mumbly filmmaker Noah Baumbach took note and cast Gerwig in his caustic Greenberg, a move that led to a personal and professional partnership between the two.
The fruit of this is Baumbach’s Frances Ha, co-written by and starring Gerwig, an unabashed tribute to the actress’ distinctive (don’t you dare say “quirky”) charms. The outline of a typical indie picture is in place, as we follow 27-year-old Frances and her New York apartment-hopping over the course of a few months. Frances dreams of being a dancer, as though nobody’d told her that if you haven’t made it as a dancer by 27, your dream should probably be in the past tense. (Actually, somebody probably told her. But her go-with-the-flow optimism is undaunted by such realities.)