It can’t get more direct than getting to hear the word from the source himself. De Palma features only one interview subject: the Blow Out, Carrie and Scarface (how do you only choose three?!) filmmaker, Brian De Palma. What could have easily been a self-indulgent or rose-tinted retrospective discussion is made fascinating by De Palma’s openness about his aspirations and influences, as well as his willingness to admit to several failures. That forthright demeanor is what might make De Palma accessible to those who don’t even consider themselves De Palma fans in the slightest. It’s also why, for the De Palma championers, this documentary is an ideal look into the director’s collected works. Brian De Palma’s noteworthy career is put into new perspective by the man at its helm.

Filmmakers Noah Baumbach (Greenberg, Frances Ha) and Jake Paltrow (The Good Night, Young Ones) seem like an odd pair to author a portrait on the legendary Brian De Palma; however, the trio of directors frequently have dinner with one another, engaging in conversations apparently not too dissimilar to this one—filmed in Paltrow’s living room. Baumbach & Paltrow jump cut through De Palma’s responses in a way that maintains a speedy pace. The rapid assembly assures that the film never really wastes a moment. They briefly acknowledge the filmmaker’s upbringing before speeding into De Palma’s early career, leaving most of the runtime for diving into his filmography piece by piece. Certain sections go into greater depth than others, although it’s not always the expected films where De Palma decides to go into detail. His work on the aforementioned films as well as The Bonfire of the Vanities, Casualties of War and Home Movies are all given extended sequences in which De Palma gets specific on his vision, then trashes on all subsequent film and TV versions of Carrie.

De Palma has plenty of name-dropping and behind-the-scenes stories to satisfy movie nerds. Some photosets show De Palma dining with friends Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg—there’s even an old home movie of Spielberg calling Lucas from a car phone. Among the most fascinating looks into the production process that De Palma provides is the director’s account of how he became attached to Scarface, before abandoning the film while Sidney Lumet took over, only to return to the director’s chair before filming commenced. When De Palma brings up his inspirations, from personal experiences like watching his doctor father’s surgeries to cultural influences like Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons, the movie makes the filmmaker’s artistic ambitions much clearer.

There are points where De Palma’s single subject structure limits its insights. De Palma mostly waves off the accusations of misogyny in his films and chooses to not elaborate on his divorces. Yet, De Palma is willing to address his legacy honestly more than one would assume from a director of his stature. The result is a captivating look through an iconic filmmaker’s work that goes far beyond a simple DVD commentary feature. The documentary sheds enough light on the long list of movies attributed to Mr. De Palma that you’ll want to revisit the ones you’ve seen and finally watch the titles that you’ve put off.

Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig’s 2012 collaboration Frances Ha cemented them as every indie lover’s favorite power duo and their new, polished comedy Mistress America will only make their fans grow fonder. It’s not quite the modern masterpiece their first offering was, but with some sharp acting and an exceptionally written script, it’s a winner in its own way. Baumbach‘s earlier film from this year, While We’re Young got generational comedy all wrong; Gerwig may just be his lucky charm because Mistress America gets it all right.

As in Frances Ha, Gerwig again co-writes and stars, this time playing Brooke, a New York City socialite with an overwhelming go-getter attitude. She’s got big dreams and plenty of them, but she’s too freewheeling and allergic to commitment to bring any of them to light. She’s a self-absorbed dunderheaded, and she’s all talk, but she doesn’t know it. Her wide-eyed delusion is what makes her such a charmer.

Falling for Brooke is a breeze, and none fall harder than her soon-to-be stepsister, Tracy (Lola Kirke), a college freshman dead set on writing for her school’s prestigious literary magazine. It isn’t as lofty a dream as Brooke’s Manhattan fantasies (opening a hair salon/restaurant/clubhouse is my favorite), but then again, Tracy is about ten years younger and belongs to a more skeptical, unambitious generation. After a wild night in the city together, Tracy finds herself borderline infatuated with her future big sis. She becomes so obsessed, in fact, that she uses Brooke as the subject of the short story she’s submitting to the magazine. Brooke’s misadventures prove to be just the inspiration Tracy needs to earn her way onto the mag, but the sometimes unflattering literary portrayal doesn’t stay hidden from Brooke for long.

Mistress America is a tale of two women out of sync with the real world, stumbling through life until they bump into each other and tumble downhill. It’s clear Tracy’s got more intellect in her little finger than Brooke has in her whole body, but Brooke represents jubilance and self-worth, things Tracy thinks may be more important in life than all the smarts in the world. The dynamic between the two characters is rich and layered and hilarious, and they’re both fully realized representatives of their respective age groups. Baumbach’s characterizations of hipster youth in While We’re Young (embodied by Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried) weren’t nearly as interesting or believable as Tracy. It’s no doubt Gerwig’s touch that gives Mistress America the vitality While We’re Young lacks.

The movie lifts off in the third act, which is essentially a chamber piece set in a sprawling, modernist Greenwich, Conn. manse. Brooke’s got a score to settle with her “ex-friend and nemesis,” Mamie Claire (Heather Lind), who stole her brilliant T-shirt idea (of “hard looking flowers with skulls and shit”), her super rich fiancé (Michael Chernus) and her cats. Determined to convince her loaded ex to finance her salon/brasserie, she shows up at their front doorstep. Along on the mission are Tracy, her school friend/crush Tony (Matthew Shear) and his relentlessly jealous girlfriend, Nicolette (Jasmine Cephas-Jones).

A spiraling volley of dialogue gradually whips up as all of the characters (plus a few random outliers) engage in a dizzying scene that sees all of the story’s dramatic threads escalate at once, in one room. It’s staggering how sharply written it is considering the amount of active participants in the scene almost reaches the double digits. It evokes the screwball comedies of the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s (His Girl Friday comes to mind), and it’s the movie’s grand showcase. It’s one of the best things I’ve seen all year.

The cast is without a weak link (Shear occasionally threatens to steal the show with the hysterical, nasally way he screams, “NICOLETTE!”), but Kirke and Gerwig are the crowning jewels. Their work is so fluid and natural that, even when the movie flirts with overt theatricality, they stay grounded and feel like real people. This is one of the funniest films Baumbach’s ever made, and the hope is that Gerwig adopts some of Brooke’s can-do spirit and churns out more movies like this for us to feast upon.

On this week’s show, the tag team of Bernard and CJ review Noah Baumbach’s latest, Mistress America, starring Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke. The boys also examine the value of modern theatrical “enhancements” like 3-D glasses and 4DX theaters and whether they’re hindering or helping movies as a whole. Plus, there’s a computer program being developed called “Dramatis” that is able to detect points of suspense in a story. Could this be the beginning of a future where computers are writing Hollywood scripts? Bernard and CJ answer that question as well as share their Indie Picks of the week on this especially bromantic edition of the Way Too Indiecast.

This week’s sponsor is MUBI, a curated online cinema that brings its members a hand-picked selection of the best indie, foreign, and classic films. Try MUBI for 30 days FREE by visiting www.mubi.com/waytooindie.

Topics

• Indie Picks of the Week (1:16)
• Movie Tech Madness (15:45)
• Dramatis (36:59)
• Mistress America Review (51:43)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

Leviathan Review
Meru Interview

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• and please leave us a rating and quick review!

Marielle Heller and Bel Powley, the director and star of The Diary of a Teenage Girl, respectively, join this week’s show to talk about their film, which is one of the most honest and unfiltered explorations of female adolescence in recent memory. Bernard is joined by Ananda to review the movie as well as discuss the state of female representation in movies today. All that plus our Indie Picks of the Week on this femme-tastic episode of the Way Too Indiecast.

This week’s sponsor is MUBI, an curated online cinema that brings its members a hand-picked selection of the best indie, foreign, and classic films. Try MUBI for 30 days FREE by visiting www.mubi.com/waytooindie.

Topics

• Indie Picks of the Week (1:05)
• The Diary of a Teenage Girl Review (9:50)
• Female Representation in Movies Today (25:55)
• Marielle Heller and Bel Powley Interview (41:22)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

Bending Steel interview
Tyrannosaur review

Subscribe to the Way Too Indiecast

• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Subscribe on Stitcher
• and please leave us a rating and quick review!

It’s a dreadful feeling to know, deep down, that you’re not where you should be in life. It’s a feeling that can strike at any age, really, but Noah Baumbach‘s generational comedy While We’re Young aligns itself with the middle-aged set with which the Brooklyn-bred director associates. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts play a New York couple in their mid-40s who glom onto a young hipster couple in their twenties (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried) as a way of redefining and rejuvenating their relationship and finding their place in the world. It’s a witty, funny, sharply composed film about mid-life restlessness and paranoia that unfortunately takes a sour turn in its third act, which is so hostile and caustic it ends things on an unpleasantly dour note.

Josh (Stiller) and Cornelia (Watts) live in a gray domestic malaise, living in comfort in their cozy New York apartment. Comfort; not contentment. While most couples their age, like their buddies Fletcher and Melina (Adam Horovitz and Maria Dizzia, respectively), repurpose their lives by having a baby, thereby solving any identity crisis they might have (or at least distract themselves from it). Josh and Cornelia are still undecided on whether they want to have kids or not, but a random friendship they strike up with Jamie (Driver) and Darby (Seyfried), a vibrant pair of young lovebirds, sucks them into a world of hipster cool that makes them excited about living life again.

Josh and Cornelia’s silly attempts to acclimate to millennial culture is the main source of humor, and being that Baumbach is a mid-lifer living in New York, he’s clearly got a grip on what’s funny about people in their 40s trying to act like their younger friends. Whether it’s Cornelia practicing moves she learned at a hip-hop dance class or Josh pulling a back muscle while riding bikes with Jamie, the jokes are all hilarious and presented sneakily enough by Baumbach that they don’t appear as broad gags (even though, really, that’s exactly what they are). When Josh starts wearing an ill-fitting fedora to mimic his buddy Jamie, it makes for a running visual gag that echoes Stiller’s quick turn as “Tom Crooze”, Tom Cruise’s loser stunt double, in a sketch they did at the 2000 MTV Movie Awards. Driver looks like a slick Brooklynite wearing a cool hat; Stiller looks like a clown.

What’s also funny is Baumbach’s spot-on portrayal of hipster culture. Jamie and Darby love to run through abandoned tunnels at night, make artisanal ice cream, throw summer block parties, and listen to Lionel Richie on vinyl. Their phony adoption of vintage things and forced eschewing of all technology hints at the major conflict on the horizon. Jamie is an aspiring documentary filmmaker, which is how he connects with Josh, who’s a more experienced (struggling) documentarian himself. When we discover the real reason Jamie befriended ol’ “Joshie”, his true nature is revealed and the movie becomes something of a curmudgeon, presenting the young characters as entitled pests.

In the film’s easygoing first two-thirds, Stiller seems to be struggling to fight off the manic, fidgety mode of acting he’s so comfortable in. When the Jamie revelation comes, however, Stiller reverts back to the panicked, fidgety actor we’re all so familiar with, and it’s for the worst. Josh’s arc is an interesting one, in which he learns to let go of his competitive, jealous nature and be at ease with himself, but Stiller is so agitating on-screen that it’s a little too easy to stop caring about him. Driver’s character isn’t likable either, so all we’re left with are the two female counterparts, both of whom aren’t afforded nearly enough time. By the end of While We’re Young, there’s an overriding feeling of apathy for the characters. It’s a shame, because in the first half of the movie we learn to like them, but after the shit hits the fan, our affection for them never returns.

Driver’s lanky physique and dopey charm is perfect for the role of Jamie. There are some nice, subtle details to the character Baumbach throws in, like how Jamie sometimes ends some sentences with “see?”, like someone from a vintage gangster movie. Watts and Seyfried are terrific, but unfortunately fade into the background as the plot becomes progressively more fixated on Stiller. Charles Grodin is pitch-perfect as Cornelia’s gruff, revered documentarian father, whose success is a point of envy and rage for Josh, ever the insulated starving artist.

Surprisingly, the breakout star of the film is Horovitz, whose measured, even-keeled performance is the polar opposite of the wild-man Ad-Rock persona he flaunted for so many years in the Beastie Boys. (Stiller, on the other hand, loses his composure as the film goes on.) He’s shockingly good, and the prospect of him working with Baumbach again (or with anyone for that matter) excites me. While We’re Young is a mostly breezy movie that’s mostly very enjoyable and would have been great save for the uneven drama that emerges near the end making the film more of a downer than it needed to be.

Noah Baumbach loves making movies. Somehow, he’s got two coming out in 2015: Mistress America, his latest collaboration with Frances Ha‘s Greta Gerwig, is tentatively set to come out later this year, and While We’re Young, a cross-generational comedy starring Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts, is out tomorrow in limited release, with an expansion to follow.

Stiller and Naomi play a married, middle-aged couple living in New York whose lives are rattled to the core when they meet a younger, more spontaneous, hipper couple (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried) who inspire them to ditch their bland home-body life and reinvigorate their long-dormant adventurous side. The presence of the hip twenty-somethings eventually drives a wedge between them, leading to jealousy, restlessness, and self-loathing.

In a media roundtable interview, we spoke to Baumbach about being so prolific, the film’s generational theme, Adam Horovitz’s acting career, his relationship with Dreamworks Animation, writing the lead role for Stiller, his writing process, portraying hipsters, and much more.

Was the plan always to make While We’re Young and Mistress America back-to-back?
Yeah. It goes back even further. The initial plan was to make While We’re Young first, but it didn’t happen for various reasons. Then we made Frances Ha, and Ben was making Walter Mitty, which was a much longer commitment. Greta [Gerwig] and I were working on Mistress America and had this other movie we wanted to do, and we felt like, we’re not going to have enough time to finish it, but why don’t we just do it as far as we can do it. I knew we had enough time to shoot it and start cutting it, but I wasn’t going to be able to [finish it.] I actually cut it fairly well, but I wasn’t finished, so I made While We’re Young and then went back and finished Mistress America.

Several of your films have this generational conflict going on.
I wasn’t really that conscious of the notion of being young or old as much as I was characters that were interesting to me and stories that I was interested in telling. I was thinking about couples from different generations and how they interact, but I wasn’t thinking of it in terms of my other work. That doesn’t mean it’s not there.

You’ve got one of my childhood heroes in the movie, Adam Horovitz. He’s great in the film. From being around him do you get a sense that he might want to keep acting?
Yeah, I think so. I hope he’ll do it for me again. I love working with Adam. There was no question in my mind that he was going to be great. You could just tell.

In the credits you thank Dreamworks Animation.
I worked on Madagascar 3. They’ve been great partners in a way, and I really like working with them. I felt like I wanted to acknowledge their support for me even though they weren’t involved in this movie.

Were you thinking of Ben as your lead while you were writing the script?
I don’t always write with someone in mind, but I started writing this after Greenberg came out, and we had a really great time on that. There was a connection and we became friends. I did this one with him in mind, and it was clear to me early on that I wanted to write a comedy of a type, something that connected me to movies from my adolescence, when studios would make comedies for adults that could be mainstream and have broad humor, but could also be character oriented. I felt like using Ben’s comic iconography in my terrain.

One of the first things I asked Richard Linklater when I met him was if his actors improvised in his films, and he said, “No. Nothing.” It’s astonishing to me, because the dialogue sounds so natural, as if it had to be improvised, and yet it’s not at all. From what I understand you work the same way, with your actors not improvising at all on set.
To quote Richard Linklater, “No.” [laughs]

Does writing dialogue come naturally to you?
Dialogue for me is something that comes quickly. That doesn’t mean the scenes come quickly. Often I kind of write my way and have conversations [in my head] to find the characters and the scenes early on. In a way, I’m improvising with myself. I can write dialogue for quite some time, but it’s like, where in it is the scene? Sometimes you’re lopping off the top and bottom and it’s in the middle, and other times it’s like, I found it over here, and now I can start the scene. It really depends. In some ways, that’s the motor for me.

I admire the fact that your portrayal of hipsters is so balanced, making them very likable and not too douche-y.
Part of it is that we meet the [hipster couple] through Naomi and Ben. We’re kind of learning them through the eyes of another couple. Because Ben’s character is stuck in many ways and looking for answers, he puts so much of it on Adam Driver’s character. I felt like, from Adam Driver’s character’s perspective, no human being should have to bear the responsibility of saving somebody else’s life. As it turns out, he doesn’t hold up under that weight, nor should he. Some people have looked at it the other way. “You’re saying the hipsters are destroying [everything.]” But I don’t see it that way at all. There are also arguments about technology and truth in art, which are subsets of the major story that I’m telling, which is of a marriage. Sometimes you have to come apart to come back together, which is a traditional comedy structure. Shakespearean even. In that I could then wrestle with all these arguments about things in the moment and generational fights without needing to take sides. I wouldn’t know what side to take anyway.

Charles Grodin is sort of a picky actor and doesn’t work as much as a lot of us would like him to. How did you get him involved?
One of my casting directors, Doug Aibel, was at a benefit or something and saw Grodin there. He intimated that he was open to working, and we happened to be casting. We were thinking about this character, and Doug told me [about Grodin] immediately, and I said, “Let’s make this happen.” I met with him, had a long meeting, and he did it.

A small detail I noticed was that Adam Driver’s character sometimes ends sentences with “see.”
In crafting the way he talked, I felt like that was a sort of old-timey way of saying things. It might be something he kind of took to. It’s kind of like a Damon Runyan thing, like he’d be into old New York. The way he says “beautiful” is like in the ’60s when people would say, “It’s just beautiful! It’s just beautiful!” It’s like a compilation of old stuff.

You’ve mentioned that you were trying to get The Squid and the Whale into the Criterion Collection. Has there been any progress on that?
Yes. It’s more like dealing with a rights thing right now, but yeah. Everybody wants it to happen.

The soundtrack is really eclectic. Why Vivaldi?
Vivaldi supplied a timeless aspect to the movie, which balanced it out because it is so eclectic. I felt like the overarching score would almost take you into another era entirely, or all eras, really. Vivaldi for me also brings back older movies that I liked. Kramer vs Kramer is one that used Vivaldi very well, obviously to different effect. I thought it was working really well for the movie, but it also was bringing me back in touch with movies from my childhood that had real meaning for me. I saw this movie as my version of those films. I love the energy, and there’s something very New York-y about it.

I read in an interview that you loved Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr. and that you thought her performance was very funny. I agree.
I saw humor in it. That audition [scene] she does…you can’t do that if you don’t know what’s funny. It’s funny because it’s not funny. I’d wanted to work with Naomi for a while, and there were times when I thought of her, but I didn’t have a part for her. She’s just somebody I’ve had on a wish list of actors I’ve wanted to work with. This just seemed like an ideal thing for her. Again, thinking of Kramer vs Kramer, I thought Ben and her together almost evoked Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. We even sort of dressed them similarly. I was thinking of that symmetry. She’s just lovely. I always think of the hip-hop [dance class] scene. I felt like Naomi Watts going into that class feels much more intimidating because you feel her anxiety about what’s going to happen. Thus, it’s that much funnier when she actually jumps in and commits. It was like a way to have a comic set piece without announcing, “Here comes the funny dance scene.”

Two weeks after the controversial conclusion to HBO’s The Jinx, the premium cable network struck again with the television premiere of Alex Gibney’s latest expose, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison Belief. Ever since the doc first played at Sundance earlier this year, it has been surrounded by high praise for its sheer audacity in uncovering one of the time’s most secretive and powerful organizations. The film’s premiere also was met with wholesale denial from the Scientology community and even direct threats. For Gibney, this is his second film to be distributed by HBO following his 2012 exploration of child abuse in the Catholic Church Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God. Gibney’s journalistic style and HBO’s reach have proved to be a good partnership, and along with The Jinx and the recent premiere of Citizenfour, the channel is providing a really nice platform for provocative documentaries to reach into the spotlight. And now see below for other news items you may have missed over the weekend.

Trevor Noah to Become Next Daily Show Host

The search for Jon Stewart’s replacement as the anchor of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show has been one of the most debated and speculated items in a while. It seems to be over as the New York Times is reporting that 31-year-old Daily Show correspondent Trevor Noah has been tabbed as the man. On Friday, Variety saw Noah as the frontrunner for the gig, though no official announcement had been made. Former host Craig Kilborn and Jon Stewart were both in their 30s when they sat at the desk, both viewed as comedy up-and-comers, so this seems like a very consistent move for the network. It also continues the Comedy Central’s streak of being one of the most diverse networks on television.

Gillian Flynn to Write Heist Thriller for Steve McQueen

First reported by Deadline, the author and screenwriter of 2014 hit Gone Girl (seriously, how was she not recognized by the Academy?) is set to adapt 2002 British miniseries Widows for Film 4 and Regency Enterprises. The previous miniseries starred Mercedes Ruehl, Brooke Shields, Rosie Perez and N’Bushe Wright as four widows who look for their husbands’ killer while finishing off a painting heist that led to their deaths. This is a slightly different direction for Flynn, but she’s already shown she can pull off pulpy thrills and snappy dialogue. This may be a bigger change-up for tapped director Steve McQueen, who has primarily worked with very serious material with an artistic sensibility. There is no current timetable for release.

Baumbach’s While We’re Young Huge in Limited Release

After It Follows set a 40k per screen average in its limited release opening, Noah Baumbach’s latest While We’re Young opened in four screens this past weekend to an estimated $60,500 per screen average, the highest since American Sniper took the nation by storm. Despite critical acclaim and his indie cred, Baumbach has never had a bonafide hit at the box office – The Squid and the Whale is his highest grossing film at just $9.4 million. If the hot limited release is any indication, While We’re Young may become his most successful film. It will be expanding over the next few weeks, sure to carve out the indie alternative to the impending blockbuster schedule.

2015 Roger Ebert Film Festival Lineup Announced

Each April, movie lovers from around the world flock to college town Champaign, Illinois to see a five-day festival curated by late film critic Roger Ebert and his wife Chaz. This year’s Ebertfest, the third since Roger’s passing, is focused on new work from some of the critic’s favorite filmmakers. Highlights include opening night selection Goodbye to Language 3D, Ebertfest vet James Ponsoldt’s The End of the Tour, and a tribute to Harold Ramis. You can check out the full festival schedule at the festival website. You should also check out Chaz Ebert’s heartfelt rundown of each selection at RogerEbert.com.

Ugh: Force Majeure Set for Hollywood Remake

One of my favorite films of last year, Swedish dark comedy Force Majeure is already set to get a remake, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. The film’s premise is certainly broad enough to go in other directions, so let’s hope that the eventual screenwriters decide to do something new with the tale of family, masculinity and vacations-gone-wrong. On the bright side, Julia Louis-Dreyfus will have heavy involvement with the remake, as she is in negotiations to star in the film along with acting as a producer. The Veep star deserves much more time on big screens, and her acerbic wit might be enough to make this thing work.

Trailer of the Week: Dope

One of the first Sundance hits to get a U.S. release date, ’90s hip-hop comedy Dope now also has its first official teaser trailer, which can be seen below. Dope is directed by Rick Famuyiwa and stars Shameik Moore, Zoë Kravitz and Forest Whitaker. It is scheduled for a June 19 release.

A new Noah Baumbach release is indie film’s version of a tentpole summer blockbuster. The writer-director behind The Squid and the Whale and Frances Ha is returning in a few weeks with his newest film, While We’re Young, and the second trailer for the film has been released.

While We’re Young stars Baumbach vet Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as a middle-aged couple whose relationship is tested after they meet a spontaneous couple played by Amanda Seyfried and Adam Driver. The film premiered at TIFF 2014, where we saw it and called it a “very funny film thanks to a wonderful cast.”

While we’re anticipating the film’s release on March 27th, check out the trailer below!

While We’re Young Trailer

Two years ago Noah Baumbach charmed Toronto audiences with Frances Ha, although fans of the whimsical free-form narrative in his last film might be disappointed with the concise structure and fastened script found in his latest film While We’re Young. Forty-something married couple Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts) begin to notice the signs of growing older–close friends are having babies, arthritis settles in, and bed time is always at 11 o’clock sharp. Though it’s when they meet a spontaneous mid-20s couple Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried) that they really start to question their own lives.

There’s a huge age gap between the couples which accounts for how differently they act and think from each other. Though ironically, it’s the older couple that has the CD collection and prefers digital films while the younger one enjoys antiquated technology like vinyl records and VHS tapes. Spending time with the impromptu hipster couple makes Josh and Cornelia feel young again, envying the way they show unconditional love towards each other. But they soon realize it’s easy to take for granted what already you have and that everyone has their own problems.

Unlike Frances Ha which pleased critics and the arthouse crowd, While We’re Young tightens things up on all levels, making it appeal to a wider audience. While the comedy is more conventional, it’s nonetheless a very funny film thanks to a wonderful cast led by Stiller and Driver. Baumbach continues to show he has a knack for creating relatable characters, this time in the form of relationship routines and the act of growing old. Despite a formulated script and an awkward rant on Fair Use policies, While We’re Young remains a very watchable film that many people will find enjoyable.

Noah Baumbach, the director of Greenberg and The Squid and the Whale, shows a more comedic side in Frances Ha. Co-writing with star Greta Gerwig, the film plays out like a beneficial compromise between the two collaborators. Baumbach keeps his focus on characters who seemingly flail through life, while Gerwig injects a playfulness and light sense of humour that keeps things from wallowing in despair. The film feels like a new, and welcome, direction in Baumbach’s career, as Frances Ha is one of his finest works to date.

Frances (Greta Gerwig) is a 27 year old barely getting by in New York City. She struggles to be a professional dancer, working as an understudy and dance tutor for children. The only constant in her life is her best friend and roommate Sophie (Mickey Sumner), but that soon changes when Sophie moves out for an apartment in Tribeca. She moves into a new place with two roommates (Adam Driver & Michael Zegen) who use their rich relatives to fund their lifestyles.

The rest of the film follows Frances as she tries to sort her life out despite a series of roadblocks and poor decisions along the way. Gerwig, who’s already shown herself to be a terrific actress, unsurprisingly gives one of the year’s best performances. Gerwig makes Frances a sympathetic character, even when she makes bone-headed decisions like rushing to Paris for a weekend or drunkenly embarrassing herself in front of friends. There are moments, like when Frances says goodbye to her parents (played by Gerwig’s own mother and father) after a Christmas vacation, that make it impossible not to root for her to succeed by the end. Sumner also does a great job as Sophie, who expresses the strained nature of her friendship to Frances almost entirely through body language.

It’s in these moments where Baumbach painfully shows how stagnant Frances’ life is, even as she tries to avoid what seems like the inevitable. Scenes like a dinner party, where Frances uses every opportunity to tell the more successful guests how badly she’s doing, are horrifying to watch unfold. The feeling of abandonment coming from everyone around you seemingly moving on to better things in their life is perfectly captured. Seeing Frances go back to work at her alma mater is a perfectly suitable and heartbreaking image that sums up those emotions.

Unfortunately, as the redemptive last act kicks in, the conclusion gets too rushed. Earlier on, when someone suggests Frances get an office job to help her get by while she figures things out, she replies with, “You say it like it’s easy.” Once she actually does take that advice, it only takes a brief montage before everything appears to be working out. It feels like a betrayal of everything that came before it, and when the film cuts to a party that everyone from the film attends, the effect is jarring. It’s an unusually neat way to wrap things up considering how much more nuanced things were up to that point.

The final scene, where the title is explained in a great shot I won’t spoil, wraps things up nicely enough that it’s easy to not mind the rushed ending. It’s hard to really dislike Frances Ha as Gerwig’s performance, the breezy pace, and quick-witted script work like gangbusters for the most part. Baumbach and Gerwig seem like a great team, and hopefully Frances Ha signifies the beginning of more collaborations in the future.

IFC Films has put out a trailer for Frances Ha, Noah Baumbach’s (The Squid and the Whale, Kicking and Screaming, Greenberg) new film. Initially a bit of a secret project that star and co-writer Greta Gerwig was going to direct, Baumbach eventually took over directing duties on the relatively small-scaled production. It premiered last fall to raves at Telluride and Toronto, with IFC eventually snatching up the distribution rights. The trailer shows a change of pace for Baumbach, with a more comedic tone than his previous films. Watch the trailer below, but be warned: Fans of David Bowie might not get “Modern Love” out of their head after watching it (seemingly a direct nod to this scene  from Leos Carax’s Mauvais Sang). Frances Ha comes out May 17th.

Watch the official trailer for Frances Ha:

Defining what Greenberg is can be quite difficult. It is a romantic comedy without the romance and comedy. The film does so by removing the typical cheesy gimmicks as it presents itself in a more real life way. There is humor in everyday situations, as this film shows, that are not meant to be funny but to someone watching, it is.

Florence Marr (Greta Gerwig) is a personal assistant to a Los Angeles family. She is an adorable hard worker who recently got out of a long relationship. Her boss’s brother Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is a 40 year old carpenter from New York who is house-sitting for them while they go on vacation for six weeks.

Roger’s character is somewhat of a mess. He just got released from a mental institution. Although it is never explained why he was there, he is very pessimistic, may have a touch of OCD and has a short temper. Also he does not drive and is a terrible swimmer. He is not exactly a crowd pleaser of any sorts.

Out of the blue it seems, Roger calls up Florence asking her if she wants to grab a drink. The plan is quickly abandoned and then awkwardly tries hitting it off with her. They admit that it is probably a bad idea to try getting together considering she is working for his brother. This makes sense, although that does not seem to stop them from trying to make it work throughout the entire film.

Roger and Florence’s interactions so early on are odd and awkward but mostly unrealistic. As viewers we miss the flirting stage completely and enter the make-a-move stage with barely a hello. Moving too fast, that was their problem but it also goes beyond just their characters. The film moves too quickly as a whole. There was a lack of clarity in the sub-plots that damages the main plot. His friends seem to come into the story then leave without any real significance.

The acting from both Greta Gerwig and Ben Stiller is top notch. It is a performance which you would come to expect from Stiller. He plays the neurotic character on a serious level while throwing in some comedy without trying spot on. Having said that, I feel that nomination for Best Male Lead at the 2011 Independent Spirit Award was deserved but I have a hard time seeing him win it. Same goes for Gerwig. I honestly with there was more Mark Duplass in the film. He has become one of my favorite actors as of late so it was a shame to see him in this for only a few scenes.

I would say that Ben Stiller pulled an Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love with his non-traditional role as the unlikeable, non-slapstick funny, jerk, which may come as a surprise to some, but he has done this role before. Just not in a long time. In fact, most loyal fans know that this is not even his first indie film. Still, it is always a pleasure to see type-casted actor break the mold and be multi-dimensional.

Best Cinematography is another nomination it is up for but also I feel that should not win. It’s too bad that the Independent Spirit Awards do not have a Best Original Score or any soundtrack related category. If they did, I feel like Greenberg would have a decent shot at getting it. The soundtrack was done by James Murphy, the man behind the wonderful band LCD Soundsystem.

Greenberg is basically a character study about Roger Greenberg. It is safe to say that Greenberg had too many ideas going on and overall had little focus and little was accomplished. It is for this reason I do not think most audiences will get into this film. However, it is worth noting that Greenberg is not a total flop. If you manage to stick it out, you will be rewarded with solid acting performances and an original soundtrack and perhaps even a few laughs.