Film:
Frances Ha
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on The Nook.
The goal of a movie review is, at least in part, to define the movie in question. With something like
Frances Ha, that’s a difficult proposition, because
Frances Ha is at least in part indefinable. This is a film that needs to be felt more than understood consciously. It takes on the entirety of the hipster generation, and the fact that the hopes and dreams of that generation are already fading, leaving yet again a collection of 20-somethings in exactly the same position of the previous generations—we’re all convinced that we’re important and going to change the world, and we’re going to do this by essentially standing still.
All of this takes place through the lens of Frances (Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the script with director Noah Baumbach). Frances wants to be a professional modern dancer, and is in the way that most people who want that profession are—she’s an understudy/trainee for a dance company and she teaches ballet to children. Her world is wrapped tightly with her friend and roommate Sophie (Mickey Sumner). Frances even breaks up with her boyfriend Dan (Michael Esper) when he asks her to move in with him, opting instead to stay with Sophie.
