Frances Ha

Noah Baumbach’s follow up to excellent 2010 film Greenburg is a much lighter and enjoyable film with Gerwig finally delivering a performance that lives up to all the hype about her. From the outside, the film looks like a simple homage to the French New Wave or to middle-period Woody Allen films--with its New York setting and beautiful black and white cinematography--but on the inside it’s much more substantial. This is one of the first films I’ve seen to explore the nonsexual love and connection that can occur between close friends of the same gender and how that can often be more powerful than feelings towards a lover--especially in your twenties. The film simply but perfectly captures the feelings and moments in the life of someone on the verge of adulthood in our contemporary time of extended adolescence.