This publicity photo released by the Independent Film Channel shows Greta Gerwig, right, as Frances, with Adam Driver as Lev having dinner in a scene from the film "Frances Ha."On paper it sounds unbearably precious and solipsistic - a cliche, even.
Middle-class, college-educated white girl in her mid-20s wanders around New York City with no real home, job or purpose, and as she struggles to find herself, she ends up even more lost. Wah.
But as it turns out, "Frances Ha" is absolutely charming: funny, sad, cringe-inducing and heartbreaking but, above all, brimming with authenticity, thanks in large part to a winning star turn from indie darling Greta Gerwig. This is a great showcase for Gerwig's abiding naturalism; not a single moment from her feels cutesy, self-conscious or false.
She and director Noah Baumbach, who worked together on the 2010 comedy "Greenberg," co-wrote the script, creating a sense of realism through a series of absurd moments. Frances is goofy and guileless, awkward and affectionate but clearly decent-hearted to the core, which only makes her misadventures more agonizing and makes you root harder for her to find true happiness.
Baumbach, whose previous films include the subtle, brilliantly observant "The Squid and the Whale," borrows from a couple of different sources here: the chatty, cultured New York epitomized by 1970s Woody Allen films and the black-and-white intimacy and restless youth of the French New Wave. But there's a timelessness to this story and a universality: that state of uncertainty between the optimism of college and the responsibility of adulthood.
Rating: R for sexual references and language
Running time: 86 minutes