Frances Ha

Noah Baumbach's follow-up to his excellent 2010 film Greenberg 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 mid-period Woody Allen films—with its New York setting and beautiful black-and-white cinematography—but on the inside, it is far more substantive than any shallow knock-off of something original ever is. Francis Ha! is one of the first films I've seen to explore the non-sexual love and connection that can occur between close friends of the same gender and how that can often be more powerful than romantic feelings, especially in one's twenties. The film simply but perfectly captures the feelings and moments of someone on the verge of adulthood in our contemporary era of extended adolescence.