Sometimes it's good to do what you're supposed to do when you're supposed to do it.
I've been in Noah Baumbach's corner ever since I saw The Squid and the Whale back in 2005, so I'm thrilled that he's put out another film that I love just as much as that one. This is, of course, not to say I disliked Margot at the Wedding or Greenberg, just that their antisocial protagonists made them hard to love. That's definitely not a problem with Frances Ha, which Baumbach co-wrote with star Greta Gerwig, who makes Frances one of the most resilient and funny characters I've ever had the pleasure of spending 80-some minutes with.
A 27-year-old modern dancer trying to make it in New York, Gerwig endures setback after setback, both in her personal and professional lives, and the film reflects this by giving us her full address every time she moves, as if we're being forwarded along with her mail. She starts out in Brooklyn, where she's living with her best friend (Mickey Sumner), but when Sumner moves out, Gerwig moves in with a couple of trust-fund layabouts (Adam Driver and Michael Zegen) who live in Chinatown and have somewhat unrealistic expectations about what an apprentice in a struggling dance troupe makes. Then again, realism is hardly either of their strong suits since would-be writer Zegen spends his days chipping away at a spec script for Gremlins 3 when he isn't dashing off sketches to submit to Saturday Night Live. Things really go south for Gerwig, though, when she's cut from the troupe's Christmas show, forcing her to pull up stakes again.
One thing Frances Ha gets absolutely right is the energy any creative person has to expend to keep their dream of "making it" afloat, no matter what their "it" is. Of course, the flipside of that is how important it is to manage your expectations every time you encounter an unforeseen obstacle. Like any imperfect person (which is all of us, really), Gerwig makes a few mistakes along the way (what possessed her to take that weekend trip to Paris?), but the important thing is that she learns from them. Then again, the main thing she learns is just how much she misses her best friend, which is something else I can definitely relate to.