Hannah takes the stairs

I watched Hannah Takes the Stairs tonight. From netflix: "After graduating from college, Hannah (Greta Gerwig) gets rid of her uninspired musician boyfriend (Mark Duplass), goes to work as an intern at a Chicago production company and develops new crushes on co-workers Matt and Paul. Director Joe Swanberg guides an inspired cast (which includes several aspiring filmmakers) that uses handheld video, improvised plot lines and episodic story structures to express a new idiom for life as a 20-something."

I'm looking over the critics reviews as well as the reviews of average netflix users, and I'm sort of surprised at how many users hated it but reviewers liked it. The reviewers and users who didn't like it cited self-absorbed nothingness and characters' inability to be introspective...but isn't that the entire point of this movie? Its about 20somethings who have lives pretty much like most people I know...fun, intelligent, have a semi-creative job, bumble around in some quirky art-ish world, are aware of their shortcomings but don't bother to do much about it, but in the end are sort of adorable and good-hearted despite any 'bad' things they do in life. I thought the film was pretty accurate. I found myself sometimes really hating the characters but simultaneously thinking "whoa I've said or done that before, but I hate what she's doing, but I've done it so what does that mean..." I think the viewer is supposed to have a love/hate relationship with the film, so I have to disagree with the netflix users who say that its trite and boring. Or maybe my life is just trite and boring...hmmm...

Also, a lot of the haters complained about the lack of script, but I think its fitting for the content of the film. The languid nothing-ever-happens-but-sitting-and-talking works for me. I guess I like boring films.

I think the funniest part of the movie is the name of the genre it fits under, mumblecore. lolz how trite and irritating is that title, yet so perfect. I learned about it last fall, but haven't seen too many mumblecore films because I was busy working my way through other stuff. Many of the films, like Hannah, are either loved or hated so it should be interesting.