Twenty-something Brooklynite Frances (Greta Gerwig) isn't lost, exactly, but she doesn't know where she is or where she's headed. An under-talented apprentice with a modern dance troupe, she lacks the clear-eyed ambition to make her dreams a reality. In short, she's a bit of a screw-up. She's also a slightly awkward fit with the people around her: too limp for boyfriend Dan (Michael Esper); too puppy-dog eager for hipsters Lev (Adam Driver) and Benji (Michael Zegen); too tattered for the yuppies orbiting fellow dancer Rachel (Grace Gummer).
The one constant in Frances' life is her roommate and best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner), with whom she has an easygoing, snark-filled intimacy. Suddenly: Sophie abruptly moves out and thereby upsets Frances' wobbly hold on adulthood. Writer-director Noah Baumbach's new feature Frances Ha is more or less the tale of Frances' personal slump following Sophie's departure, and of her attempts to recreate the camaraderie the two women once shared. It's familiar ground for Baumbach and co-writer and lead Gerwig, both of whom excel at conveying the nebulous dissatisfaction that can suffuse contemporary work, leisure, and relationships.
Frances and her comrades embody every cliché regarding stunted, self-conscious New Yorkers, but the film is still engaging despite its narcissistic, oblivious characters. Between Gerwig's characteristically charming performance and Baumbach's nimble cinematic storytelling, Frances Ha finds its footing as wry, woebegone tale of arrested development. Moreover, the film presents one of the finest sequences in Baumbach's filmography to date: a brilliantly edited depiction of the saddest Paris vacation of all time.
