Friday, February 10, 2012

1690 - Hannah Takes The Stairs

Regular visitors of this blog will note that I've had a lazy viewing/reading month.  I swear it's 'cause I'm working my ass on something (which will be revealed in a few weeks).  But I decided to take a break tonight to wade through another film by Joe Swanberg.  What's really interesting in this film is how tight he shoots everything.  I don't know if it's to capture subtleties of actors or if it's to hide the extremely bland locations that they're in - somehow it works.
This film was a tad frustration on a few levels - technically it was difficult to make out the audio at some points, and just from a story point of view - I'm not really sure what story they were trying to tell here... It's almost about a woman who can't stand to be along or focus on herself so she attaches herself to men to avoid that.  I don't know.  It's pretty unfocused.  That said, I enjoyed the characters quite a bit.  I know that Swanberg works pretty lose, so it's hard to know who to credit for what on a film like this.  The film works largely because Greta Gerwig is so goddamn watchable.  She's one of those actresses incapable of a false move, I never feel like she's trying something - she's always being it.  She deserves all the success she's been getting.
Like Swanberg's other efforts this is the kind of film you'll either love or hate.  I liked it.

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