george.schmidt Review of Lola Versus

Lola Versus (2012)

Gerwig shines in an otherwise so-so romcom for the mumble core generation

[7/10 · 16 June 2012]

LOLA VERSUS (2012) **1/2 Greta Gerwig, Joel Kinnaman, Zoe Lister Jones, Hamish Linklater, Bill Pullman, Debra Winger, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Maria Drizzia. Gerwig continues her cottage industry as the mumble core poster-girl makes a head-and-shoulders attempt in her first leading role as the titular heroine, a young psychology grad student in NYC whose fiancée suddenly flakes out and dumps her just before the impending nuptials, causing her to reflect, react and retract - not necessarily in that order - in response as she attempts to find herself without losing her mind. The arch screenplay by co-star Lister Jones (a hoot for the most part as Gerwig's New Age-y BFF with novice filmmaker Daryl Wein has its hands full in trying to set the right tone somewhere between Woody Allen, Nora Ephron and Edward Burns with uneven results in a hit-and-miss too-cool-for-school dialogue and 'awkward' for awkward sakes situations yet the picturesque cinematography by Jakob Ihre makes Manhattan even more romantic than it has been in years (!) Gerwig shines but has a lot of heavy lifting to do.