Hannah Takes the Stairs

Hannah (Greta Gerwig) is a twenty something starting an internship at a Chicago production office working under writing partners Matt and Paul. Her boyfriend Mike (Mark Duplass) quits his job. She contemplates breaking up and Mike decides to do it himself. She starts to fall for his co-workers which causes friction among the trio.

This is Joe Swanberg, mumblecore, and the indie circuit. Gerwig is starting out her partnership with Swanberg. She definitively has a star quality to her. She is very much the IT girl of the movie. On the other hand, Matt and Paul are not being played by IT guys. It would help to have Duplass play one of the guys. There is real tension happening between Hannah and Mike. It gets really uncomfortable and dark at times. The love triangle needs that kind of tension and darkness. Without it, the film goes limp. They struggle to get to that same level. It doesn't put Hannah in the best of light either. The movie falters to the finish.

No, "Hannah Takes the Stairs" is NOT a perfect movie, or even a great movie, or even a movie that I feel the desire to ever watch again. But, it still is worthwhile, it still has plenty of entertainment value, humor, heart, sadness, happiness, and so on and so forth. The film takes the typical "mumblecore" approach to things; the cast is made up of quirky, often romantically involved twentysomethings, the budget is extremely low, the dialogue feels improvised, but still clever, the comedy is awkward, the drama is slight, but still impactful. This film in particular embodies all of these characteristics to its own advantage, and felt stunningly realistic. Although the production value is blatantly low, the acting is strong, particularly Greta Gerwig's performance, which is at least somewhat responsible for kickstarting her career, which has obviously developed quite a bit over the past ten years! Her character is flawed, but she is also always likable. She and the rest of those populating the screen feel like real, well developed human beings. These are characters who I feel like I've met before...I've passed by them in life, I may have even befriended them. And now, on an unbiased screen, I can witness their rises, their falls, their good times, and their bad ones.

Hannah's a youthful but ridiculously bright Chicagoan and recent college graduate interning at a production company, but she's not entirely satisfied in her relationship with her current boyfriend. She feels comfortable in the workplace and is crushing on a few of the men there, so will this give her a chance to find a new suitor? Better question for the viewer: should you care either way? Low-budget indie kitsch that's meant to feel raw and real, but instead is just a collection of dull, fatuous characters sitting around gabbing about nothing particularly invigorating, showing off their middling instrumental skills, breaking into random dance moves, getting physical when the urge hits, so on and so forth, but none of it really carries much weight and the occasional shots of Chicago scenery thrown in do absolutely nothing to redeem it. So-called naturalistic filmmaking, just not at its finest reportedly allowed the movie to be shot without a script, and it clearly shows as it's without an incisive narrative to keep the viewer engaged. **

Joe Swanberg's "Hannah Takes the Stairs" is a low-budget art-film done in a quasi-improvisational style. It centers around a group of self-absorbed twenty-somethings who spend most of their time sitting around discussing life and relationships as if such subjects had never been talked about before. The result is a sometimes insightful but more often tedious look into the mindset of today's younger generation.

Hannah (Greta Gerwig) is a neo-Bohemian playwright with poor instincts when it comes to men, who, upon dumping her ne'er-do-well musician boyfriend, immediately strikes up romances with two fellows at the obviously loosey-goosey TV production company where she works. The movie strives hard to be as extemporaneous as possible both in its performances and its direction, and while that does yield a few moments of truth and honesty along the way (the break-up scene is almost painfully convincing), too much of the movie is simply vapid and self-indulgent, with a trio of perfectly able-bodied young folk puling and mewling and whining about life to the point where we just don't care to listen to them anymore.

With no real plot or storyline to speak of, watching "Hannah Takes the Stairs" is a bit like staring at someone else's random doodlings for an hour-and-a-half and finding no real reason why we should care about them. And, oh yes, unless I missed it, no actual staircase appears in the movie, with or without Hannah going up or down it. I guess it must be metaphorical.

"Hannah Takes the Stairs" is a really low-budget, independent film. Congrats to the filmmakers for getting it made and out there for anyone to see.

They started out with a great simple boy and girl storyline which fit their means perfectly. They respected the audience by making all of the plot points quickly, and effectively moving through all the scenes. However, they did not seem to show this same respect for the main character Hannah. She was self-absorbed, irritating and completely unrelatable. By the end of the movie (if you make it that far) you just don't care if Hannah finds what she's looking for or not.

Should you see this movie? Probably not. But I do believe that all independent films deserve our support. Here's hoping their next effort is better.