Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach) [101 points / 12 votes]
"I've been trying to figure out why Frances Ha gets to me so deeply, and I've begun to suspect that it's because of the film's rhythms — because of the pacing within each scene, between scenes, and across the whole of this very episodic movie. The editing and plotting have a beat to them that feels natural, maybe even circadian, and which draws me in instantly. I can't stop watching when one sequence ends, because I want to be reminded how poor Frances either rebounds or sinks even lower in the next. Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig have collaborated here on a movie that ebbs and flows, with its hardships (and there are many, albeit mostly quite small) stitched tightly to its triumphs.
Everything is finite in Frances Ha, whether it's a montage-length Christmas back home or an especially low period Frances spends in a dorm at her alma mater. Everything contributes to her gradual maturation, which builds over the film's concise 86 minutes, yet never results in any sudden realizations, because this isn't that kind of movie. Instead of being vocalized, Frances' many regrets and rare moments of grace register on Gerwig's body: in her creased brow, strained laugh, and set of gawky mannerisms. The movie can stand to be cut so economically because its star's body language is so dense with subtext. The dialogue, meanwhile, tends to be reserved for these coiling fragments of conversation which sometimes erupt with blurted faux pas. They're funny, occasionally epigrammatic, but always rendered plausible and slightly clumsy by delivery.
The jokes here are subdued, but they can sting even minutes later, and that's because this is a small movie that expands. As every line swells in retrospect, so does every shot framing Gerwig somewhere lonely and asymmetrical. So, mercifully, does every burst of friendship or dance, until no motion seems more free than her skipping down crowded streets to "Modern Love," until no ending seems more desired than the simple phrase "She's my best friend." Frances Ha grows despite its modesty because it's utterly resistant to cliché. All this is familiar, yet here it's told anew with unexpected verve and a musical quality to its pacing. It's an array of formal pleasures all coupled with awkward pains." -- Andreas Stoehr
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