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I don�t recall which critic said this�maybe it was Dana Stevens of Slate, or Andrew O�Hehir of Salon, or somebody at Slant�and I certainly don�t want to look it up�but somebody said, after watching Noah Baumbach�s Frances Ha, �It sure is fun to watch Greta Gerwig do stuff.� And it sure is. There are few actors out there who look like they�re having more fun being alive than Greta Gerwig; even when her characters are miserable, they�re still charmingly miserable. They�re like Anna Karina in Pierrot le Fou, when she wanders around lamenting, �What should I do? I don�t know what to do. What should I do�?� And she looks distressed but one still wouldn�t mind being her under those circumstances.
Were it not for my irrational prejudice against American movies, I would probably have seen more Greta Gerwig movies by this point, because I really, really like her. So far the only films of hers that I�ve seen are Whit Stillman�s Damsels in Distress, a delightful movie where she plays the lead role; Ti West�s House of the Devil, in which she has a bit part; and then I recently saw Frances Ha in theaters (at the Landmark in Edina; there was a recent Onion headline attributed to Baumbach that said, �You haven�t seen Frances Hauntil you�ve seen it in IMAX.� Lol.
Frances Hais filmed in crisp, digital black-and-white and depicts the titular Frances�s adventures trying to make it as a modern dancer in New York while navigating troubled interpersonal relationships and dealing with the disappointments of adulthood. Gerwig co-wrote the movie with Baumbach (as she has done a great deal of co-writing in the past on the various mumblecore movies where she made her name) and her presence seems to have injected a certain element of compassion intp Baumbach�s movies that is frequently laughing (I had to pause The Squid and the Whale several times, so painful did I find the characters� awkwardness and humiliation). Frances Ha certainly has its awkward moments, but they�re always made endearing by Gerwig�s presence and by a sense of compassionate humor for our suffering fellow human beings.
Now, let�s hearken back briefly to that notion that Greta Gerwig is fun to watch. She�s just infectiously cheerful. It almost made me feel better about life. She does �quirk� well, without the insufferable self-awareness of so many of Wes Anderson�s Lilithian demon spawn. There�s a scene where she runs/dances through the streets of New York while David Bowie�s �Modern Love� plays in the background that rivals some of the best uses of non-diagetical music in Anderson�s films. In many ways, Gerwig reminds me of the Woody Allen of the seventies: not the hopelessly neurotic Woody Allen, but the charming and flirtatious Woody Allen who could convincingly win Diane Keaton�s affections in movies like Sleeper and Annie Hall(although it should be noted that Greta Gerwig does not stammer; she tends to speak eloquently and deliberately). It is perhaps logical that Gerwig appeared in Woody�s largely unseen To Rome with Love. Woody doesn�t act in most of his recent films, and so usually there�s a Woody stand-in to stammer and be awkward (Jason fucking Biggs and Will Ferrell have tried and failed in this role). Woody Allen should consider a female Woody, and maybe he could make Gerwig his newest muse (she�d certainly be a hell of a lot better than Scarlett Johansen). If not, Gerwig doesn�t need Woody, any more than she needed her early collaborator Joe Swanberg. Frances Ha is her second movie with Baumbach; she can continue working with him, and then some day hopefully she can direct her own movies (she co-directed one with Swanberg, but I�d like to see her take the lead).
