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Critics reviews

FRANCES HA

Noah Baumbach United States, 2012
This combination of arch mannerisms and guileless enthusiasm defines Gerwig's onscreen presence throughout the film. She has that rare ability to seem both highly attuned to the interpersonal intricacies of the moment and a half-step removed, analyzing her own reactions and responses in a constant state of recalibration.
December 7, 2015
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Frances Ha is a wonderful comedy, above all because it doesn't depend on the audience finding Frances loveable; it's like Greenberg, Mr. Baumbach's previous film, in simultaneously embracing its protagonist and judging her harshly (though it's much less angry than Greenberg).
February 25, 2014
Underneath its poignant, stylish gorgeousness (the black-and-white photography mounts a convincing case for directors going digital) is also an unusually frank treatment of how friends drift apart once their ambitions and monetary accomplishments begin to differ.
November 15, 2013
Frances Ha, like Frances herself, is genial, charming and only occasionally prone to outbursts that might discomfit the viewer. While its New York locations, hipster milieu and sex comedy suggest vintage Woody Allen-ish ambitions, its lack of grounding in the present moment (aside from ubiquitous iPhones) leaves it feeling inconsequential.
July 26, 2013
...Frances Ha both acknowledges and earns its place in the tradition of the New York bourgeois comedy, encoding the angst of social mores in witty dialogue. Make no mistake: the cinematic slacker has come of age.
July 25, 2013
The movie is fast, speeding in staccato from one scene to the next with one-liners piling up in a way few American comedies of the past five years have executed... We might say Frances Ha is a new interpretation of the romantic comedy given its pivot from marriage towards friendship as a primary goal (or as a way to define one's place in the world); we might even say it's a new genre as much as a new story.
July 18, 2013
This isn't a deep film, and the ponderous argot padding it... suggests the friction in the difference between [Gerwig and Baumbach's] ages (he's 14 years older). The sense of place (Brooklyn, Paris, Poughkeepsie) and black-and-white photography almost excuse the forced authenticity. This is not the cinematic rock and roll of his cri de divorce, The Squid and the Whale, or the socially apocalyptic smoke signal of Greenberg.
June 19, 2013
The dialogue and editing are zippy and generally charming, combining with the tart observations of 20-something culture to create a nice frisson. (This may be the least acrid movie Baumbach had ever made, despite its underlying theme that growing up means learning to accept chronic disappointment.) Yet most of the energizing formal ideas are taken from other movies; the creative nadir may be when Baumbach uses Georges Delerue's iconic theme from Jules and Jim as a shortcut to pathos.
May 23, 2013
Gerwig, maybe, has freed something in [Baumbach]. Shot digitally on the fly, its New York streets rendered in satiny black-and-white, Frances Ha is a patchwork of details that constitute a sort of dating manual—not one that tells you how to meet hot guys, but one that fortifies you against all the crap you have to deal with as a young person in love with a city that doesn't always love you back.
May 17, 2013
The personality, though, is equal parts its star and director. Gerwig has a loopy, vaguely medicated charm where she blurts out embarrassing admissions, as though she wasn't even trying to stop them. Baumbach is a wit with a gift for sharp, self-aware one-liners. The dialogue leans more towards Gerwig, but the film has the tight shape of its director's films ("Kicking and Screaming," "The Squid and the Whale").
May 16, 2013
..."Frances Ha" is the most purely enjoyable and sweet-tempered movie the exceptionally talented Baumbach has made his nearly two decades as a director... its lack of abrasive surfaces of any sorts is something that's new to Baumbach's body of work...
May 16, 2013
An unabashed star showcase, Frances Ha is at times too satisfied with itself, and eventually the heroine's trajectory succumbs to a lazy, get-your-shit-together montage (Frances makes up with Sophie! Frances choreographs her own dance routine! Frances has her own place!) that's right out of a Judd Apatow film... But when Gerwig faces the camera, her merriness and anxiety perpetually mingling, the enchantment is sustained.
May 16, 2013