Frances Ha

FRANCES HA           B+                 

USA  (86 mi)  2012  d:  Noah Baumbach                  Official site

A smaller film from Baumbach, a drama of restless anxiety, much like the city of New York movies of Woody Allen with Diane Keaton in the 70’s like Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979), shot in the supposedly more realistic medium of Black and White by Sam Levy, where the combustible energy of the city is as much a character as any of the people living in it, a film that can briefly be described as a story that pays tribute to life in your 20’s and to New York City.  While it’s true, Baumbach mostly makes films about the loathsome lives of dissatisfied middle to upper class white people, who one supposes have their own unique problems dealing with the emptiness and boredom of their lives while others struggle with the crippling effects of an actual financial crisis, his films are often difficult to sit through because of the undercurrent of unpleasantness in the bitingly sarcastic wit on display, showing us with pinpoint accuracy the face of middle class disillusionment.  One of the best writers working today, he has a special ear for dialogue that gives the film a theatrical effect, like a modernist stage play, where perhaps the closest today may be Richard Linklater’s conversational romance trilogy of Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013).  An interesting collaboration brought this together, as co-writers Baumbach and Gerwig have been dating since late 2011, where their differing perspectives on each other’s age group, as he’s 14 year older, only make things more interesting.  Quite a contrast to Ben Stiller’s detestable lead in Greenberg (2010), or nearly all of Baumbach’s previous self-loathing lead roles, where according to Helen Gramates, former Chicago Film Festival programmer, “Baumbach couldn't really make the character loathsome or unsympathetic if his girlfriend is portraying/writing her!” 

Greta Gerwig rose to prominence through the Mumblecore movement, starring in Joe Swanberg movies, like NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS (2008), which she co-wrote, directed, and starred with Swanberg before becoming the *it* girl of indie films, similar to Chloë Sevigny in the 90’s, working with Whit Stillman in Damsels in Distress (2011), the more mainstream Lola Versus (2012), and Woody Allen in To Rome With Love (2012).  In each she plays a variation on the independent woman role originated by Keaton, vibrantly energetic, intellectually curious, but always appearing neurotic, never at ease with herself, where physically she’s a bit awkward and something of a klutz, where in the storyline she’s continually challenged by the unwelcome effects of making the wrong choices.  A single girl without any serious love interests, Gerwig as Frances is in nearly every scene of the film, where her life is equally consumed by her roommate and best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner, Sting’s daughter), where they’d be lost and alone without each other, considering themselves identical twins in mind and spirit, though they’re nothing alike.  While Sophie has a stable job she likes working in a publishing house, Gerwig frets about never having the kind of money her friends seem to have, supporting herself with odd jobs as an apprentice dancer and part-time choreographer, but never invited to join the dance company, simply filling in when there’s available work, usually during holiday concerts.  Though she thinks of herself as poor, quickly corrected by a friend who claims “that’s an insult to actual poor people,” she’s a college graduate whose parents live in the affluent suburbs of Sacramento, California, where at some point she has to learn to stop tapping into their resources whenever there’s a need to bail her out of financial jams.  Frances is in this in-between stage of prolonged childhood and becoming a young adult. 

When Sophie announces she’s moving out of the apartment to move in with a rich but relatively unlikable guy from Wall Street named Patch (Patrick Heusinger), who says things like (Frances says in a gruff monotone voice) “I gotta take a leak,” this leaves Frances without a home, going into a free-fall of one mini-disaster after another, each one more embarrassing than the last.  The ability to stand on her own does not seem to be one of her many talents, but she’s never at a loss for words, or an interesting opinion, turning into something of a pathological liar creating a more interesting fake life to cover her abysmally sad real one.  Stylistically, the film resembles the seemingly improvisational nature of the French New Wave, where the quirky state of mind of Frances is expressed throughout by familiar refrains of the Georges Delerue music from KING OF HEARTS (1966), adding an air of innocence and something adorably timeless about Frances, whose playful sense of humor masks her bundle of nerves and somewhat self-chosen insecurity, yet unlike Sophie, she’s not afraid to take risks and refuses to surrender her youthful ideals.  One sequence in particular shows Frances twirling, dancing, and leaping through the streets of New York to the music of David Bowie’s “Modern Love,” Frances Ha [2013] - Dance in the street - YouTube (1:08), paying homage to Denis Levant in the Léos Carax film Mauvais Sang (Bad Blood) (1986), seen here, Modern Love YouTube (2:01), although Levant sprints to the right in an endlessly long, unbroken shot at night while Gerwig runs to the left in much less impressive fashion during the day with several noticeable edits.  So while this smaller film may not live up to the artistic ideal of Carax or cinema greatness, Frances proves that misadventures are valuable life experiences and are part of the growing process, where in her own small way she remains true to herself.  Small victories are worth savoring, where you don’t always have to risk Don Quixote disillusionment and defeat by insisting upon fighting the larger and unwinnable battles. 

White Reindeer

WHITE REINDEER                B             
USA  (82 mi)  2013  d:  Zach Clark                  Official site

An absurdist, black comedy for Christmas may be the perfect thing to accompany all the office parties and egg nog, where people tend to overdo their festive merriment during the holidays, often to cover up their own insecurities and emptiness inside.  But either way, this film will likely lead you down a road not taken before, especially its particularly bizarre take on Christmas, where part of its intrigue is counting down the days before the big event, where our heroine gets herself ever deeper into disturbing events that test her Christmas spirit.  Anna Margaret Hollyman, from Small, Beautifully Moving Parts (2011), is Suzanne Barrington, a chirpy, real estate agent seen selling a young couple (Joe Swanberg and Lydia Hyslop) a new home in Virginia suburbia, where she seems particularly thrilled to ease their fears about home break-ins, telling them she and her husband live just around the block.  This feeling of coziness is reinforced by a bout of noisy lovemaking in the kitchen, Greek-style, where her husband Jeff (Nathan Williams) has a tendency to talk his way through the moment with porn sounding sex talk, which sounds a bit edgy.  While he’s the likable local TV meteorologist, he announces over dinner that he’s been offered a new job in Hawaii, starting in January, so this will be their last Christmas in Virginia.  Immediately her mind lights up with thoughts of white sandy beaches and the ocean waves lapping at her feet, where somehow her perfect life just got a little bit better.      

Disaster strikes, however, when Suzanne returns home one evening only to find her husband lying on the floor dead with part of his skull blown away.  This sends her reeling into instant depression, staying with her parents afterwards, where she remains in shock throughout the funeral, still besieged by thoughts of Hawaii.  When she returns home, however, she seems determined to make a fresh start by immediately decorating for Christmas, though she does this by binge-buying on the computer, ordering just about everything, spending a fortune.  But not to worry, as apparently money is the least of her concerns, especially after Jeff’s best friend awkwardly reveals her husband was having an affair with a stripper before he died, immediately sending her to his laptop where she quickly gains entry, discovering his favorite porn site, which she sits and watches while nonchalantly munching on a salad.  Before you know it, she’s found her way to the local strip club, where she finds Fantasia (Laura Lemar-Goldsborough) in the dressing room, a young black woman with eyelash extensions that appear to have hanging attachments on the end, a marvel of physical science that they’ll even stay in place.  Fantasia is not the least bit phased by the visit, and even offers a hug over the death of their mutual amour, and then out of the blue, asks Suzanne if she wants to hang with some of the girls at a dance club afterwards.  With literally nothing on her plate, why not?  What else has she got to do?  While they all binge drink and do lines of cocaine, Suzanne politely refuses, but as the evening wears on, she decides to give it a try, shown in a blur of white flashes, as she literally can’t stop herself from indulging. 

Waking up in a daze on someone’s sofa, as a little black girl is yelling in her face that it’s time to get up, Suzanne asks where she is?  “Maryland” is the unexpected response, as if she’s suddenly become Alice after falling down the rabbit hole.  But she’s safely with Fantasia, who lives with her mother and young daughter, where they politely offer her breakfast after she pukes in the bathroom.  Again, having no other plans, Fantasia decides to invite her shopping, which becomes a cocaine-fueled excursion of high-end shoplifting at Macy’s, where they wrap their stolen possessions in aluminum foil, as if this is a secret criminal code, followed by nonstop partying at a friend’s house.  Suzanne is a good sport and the women are surprisingly accepting of this vanilla white bread, suburban girl with hardly a hint of personality, while they get blitzed to super aggressive punk rock songs.  While there are amusing stretches, including an anything goes, Joe Swanberg-hosted sex party, where Suzanne finally loses it in the bathroom, where her emotional world is simply crumbling all around her, but she’s being comforted by a woman dressed in a naked catsuit.  Much of it is too absurd for words, a turbulent rollercoaster ride into a psychological descent of utter Hell, but it has to be said people are reaching out to her in her hour of need, so it’s not like she is going through her turmoil alone.  Again counting down the days to Christmas, her parents compound the ordeal by announcing they are separating, which is more like a punctuation mark on an utterly devastating series of events.  Nonetheless, her recurrent flashes of an imaginary Hawaii are a persistent reminder that there’s plenty more to discover out there, where the blur of her own life needs an abrupt shift to something new, where the film offers an amusing blend of naturalism and an imaginary world beckoning.  The director Zach Clark’s WHITE REINDEER joins the ranks of several American independent filmmakers like David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche (2013), Jeff Nichols’ Mud (2012), Aaron Katz’s COLD WEATHER (2010), and Chad Hartigan’s This Is Martin Bonner (2013), where they are all graduates of the North Carolina School of Arts.       

All the Light in the Sky

ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY                C+     
USA  (72 mi)  2012  d:  Joe Swanberg                         Official site

Another minimalist work from one of the creators of Mumblecore, which may have its devotees, some praising the so-called naturalism expressed, but the problem seems to be no creative idea ahead of time, where these films are made up as they go along.  What little story there is can be lost in the minutiae of daily life, where these filmmakers love capturing random moments where lives intersect, expecting something of interest to be found through improvisation, but mostly what’s revealed are dull and uninteresting characters who are never developed through any dramatic complexity, but just exist in the aimlessness of the present.  Swanberg has made six movies in 2011, four movies in 2012, and three movies in 2013.  That’s over a dozen movies in just 3 years, compared to Tarkovsky, for instance, one of the greats, who made just 8 films in his entire career, or Cassavetes who made 12, but they were considerably more thought out and brilliantly conceived *before* shooting than the likes of this, a film that’s typically not really about anything, and where nothing ever seems to matter.  Opening with Jane Adams as Marie, an independent actress, where we see her on the phone talking to her agent about two projects, one where she didn’t get the part, while the other is getting a go ahead, with no firm commitment, however, about financing.  So while we may think this reality reflects the financial instability of making American independent films on the fly, think again, as Marie soon arrives at her beachfront Malibu home with windows and a balcony overlooking the vast expanse of the ocean.  Typically of many films we see these days, despite the enormous wealth needed to afford an idyllic home like this, we never see anyone in the film actually work for a living.  Instead these films play out like working class fantasies, where the players involved supposedly represent someone’s idea of success.  

What’s problematic, however, is that when we finally spend time with the characters living this dream, they don’t hold an ounce of interest, as their lives are even more boring than our own, and the audience often questions why they deserve all the fringe benefits of a good life overlooking the ocean, when they’ve seemingly done nothing to earn it.  This moral and economic vacuum is visually on display, with panoramic shots of the ocean throughout, but the truth of the matter is the film doesn’t even attempt to address this issue.  Instead we suffer through the machinations of ordinary moments with dull and witless people from Southern California who spend their time eating health foods and taking dope, consumed by the idea of youth and sex, even while relationships are almost nonexistent in their lives, as moments of intimacy are supremely awkward, and sex is nearly absent.  Marie goes gaga over a visit from her niece from New York, Faye, Sophia Takal, a much younger version of herself, more attractive, but following in her footsteps as she is just starting to get into the acting business.  Their scenes together consist of Marie talking endlessly about God knows what, with Faye smiling politely, presumably listening, but there’s no interaction whatsoever.  Faye has a boyfriend that she’s crazy about, where they have late night skype sessions over the computer while Marie puts herself to sleep while listening to the endless drone of a psychiatric self-help monologue.  The next morning, Marie concocts some natural kelp juice from her blender, and the two pretend to enjoy it. 

Swanberg dots the film with a smattering of other characters, including an appearance from horror director Ti West as a sleazy LA director that wants to get into Faye’s pants, but the most interesting is next door neighbor Rusty, indie perennial Larry Fessenden, an offbeat character who drinks beer and is perpetually optimistic, where he and Marie go paddle boarding in the ocean together, but his roving eye is usually scoping out younger girls.  Their habit of wearing wet suits into the ocean in sunny California seems like the latest craze, as they’re never seen far enough off shore to really justify the need.  Mostly Marie spends her time with Dan (Kent Osborne), a guy who is perpetually stoned, where sleeping together is an expected formality, while also being something they’d both quickly like to forget.   Enter Simon Barrett as a science geek who spends his time talking endlessly about various solar projects in the works, “harvesting” wind and solar energy, where perhaps Marie is delving into the subject for a part she’s playing, but a good deal of the film is spent hearing about earth’s relationship to the sun, as evidenced by various technological gadgets that measure the sun’s rays and the overall presence of light.  Science, one supposes, is the reality they are all avoiding in this film, deluding themselves about ephemeral pleasures and the so-called happiness of youth, when most are not so young anymore.  There’s an interesting parallel about the shoreline eroding, showing the natural world aging, where these beautiful homes will eventually be swept into the sea, a metaphor for their own youthful lives that also eventually wear down over time.  But the overall mood seems to be why worry about that today when there are still so many more insipidly dull existential moments one can aspire to.  Without the physical presence of ocean, whose magnificent expanse allows the audience to breathe and provides its own timeless beauty, this superficial view of life in Southern California feels like slow death via mindlessness and claustrophobic suffocation.