Critic Reviews

• Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

  A black-and-white salute to the French New Wave (the score is borrowed from Georges Delerue, composer of many a Truffaut and Godard film) that manages to be very much of this moment ...

• Ty Burr, Boston Globe

  The movie's a love letter to an actress and her character, but by the end you may feel like an intervention is more in order.

• Tom Long, Detroit News

  The obvious love of New York City echoes Woody Allen at his best. But "Frances Ha" is very much its own film, a story of life and love and messy rooms.

• Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

  Baumbach ... makes the film a celebration of Gerwig's coltish, goofball appeal.

• Rafer Guzman, Newsday

  Late-blooming 20-somethings have never been so perfectly captured -- and Gerwig has never been more appealing -- than in this funny, tender, life-affirming movie.

• Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald

  A modern fairy tale about a girl whose golden heart refuses to tarnish.

• Chris Barsanti, PopMatters

  [a] fresh-faced and spirited black and white comedy...

• Mark Dujsik, Mark Reviews Movies

  If Frances has a chance, there's hope for us all.

• Dustin Putman, DustinPutman.com

  The near-incomparable Greta Gerwig gives Frances a fire, an exuberance, and a three-dimensional uniqueness that ensures the viewer never sways from her side.

• Sara Maria Vizcarrondo, Movies With Butter

  It gives you two choices: find it delightful or don't: there is no unique, self-guided option. As frustrating as that conundrum may be, it's still hard not to take option one.

• Kelly Vance, East Bay Express

  Without Gerwig, this story of a hopeful young woman making her way in New York would have been just like all the rest. Instead, it's a work of art.

• Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com

  But there's just something so relentlessly likable about put-upon, impoverished Frances (Greta Gerwig) that it almost doesn't matter that her New York is just one big Williamsburg.

• Susan Granger, SSG Syndicate

  Improbable yet engaging, this arrested development serio-comedy should be particularly endearing to those who can't quite get their lives together.

• Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com

  Baumbach's made an intermittently attentive comedy with a few intolerable detours, only as insightful as it wants to be.

• Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  The conversations sparkle with both intended and unintended wit, and in a certain cockeyed light, Frances' blithe denial of reality is a charming affirmation of life.

• Chris Foran, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  "Frances Ha" could have taken a very different, much darker direction, but not with Gerwig in it.

• Peter Canavese, Groucho Reviews

  Brims with funny ideas both verbal and visual that are finely tuned by Baumbach and his cast, and sharply edited...

• Matt Pais, RedEye

  Passive-aggressive and expertly generational, Frances Ha is either hilarious or devastating, and probably both.

Read all 18 critic reviews