There's no question that Greta Gerwig is the type of actress Hollywood needs more of. Especially in the realm of romantic comedies, where her fresh, effervescent personality and unconventional style is a welcome kick in the butt for a stale genre. Starting out in the world of indie flicks nobody saw, she's also familiar with emotional nuances, which gives her incredible comedic timing and dramatic depth. She makes movies better. It's really just that simple. Her move into the mainstream has been wrought with landmines, however, and she just stepped on another one.
On the surface, Lola Versus would seem to be the perfect film for her, giving Gerwig the chance to shine in a true leading role. She plays Lola, a 29-year old New York gal who has everything she's ever dreamed of out of life. She's happy, almost unbearably so, and her relationship with her artist boytoy, Luke(Joel Kinnaman) is the sort of artsy, bohemian perfection you only find in movies. Almost as soon as she hits euphoric bliss upon Luke's marriage proposal to her, he promptly breaks things off, giving Lola one of those ambiguous reasons that you know is going to drive her crazy for the rest of the film.
And drive her crazy it does. Aided by the atrocious advice of her acidic best friend, Alice(co-writer Zoe Lister-Jones), Lola whores herself out emotionally, eager to find a way to forget and replace Luke, while also being too scared to commit to much of anything. This especially confuses Luke's best buddy, Henry(Hamish Linklater), who has long harbored a secret crush on her, and when she returns those feelings it's a recipe for disaster. The break-up causes a ripple effect of terrible bad luck, forcing her back into her crappy home, watching her friends seem so much happier. Oh, and let's not forget the dreaded three-oh is right around the corner.None of this will sound unfamiliar, but Gerwig makes it work for longer than it has any right to. Unfortunately she's not helped by a scattershot script that works when capturing Lola's desperation and loneliness. For as much as those scenes work, that's how badly it fails in every other respect. None of her attempted relationships feel authentic in the least, and come off like the "guy of the moment" trend that handicapped HBO's Sex and the City for so long. One particularly awkward bit had Lola quickly hooking up with a stalkerish architect with a huge schlong but horrible taste in bedroom music. What's the point?
Few of her comic misadventures in the NYC dating scene amount to much in the way of gaining self-respect and reliance, which is really what Lola's ordeal is meant to be about. There's very little fresh insight to be found. Of course she eventually comes to a hasty epiphany, but it only arrives with the sudden need to end the film, and doesn't feel organic at all. Gerwig is a pure delight, however, and it hurts to see her circling the drain in such a stagnant, cookie-cutter film because the potential is there. Lister-Jones writes herself most of the raunchy punchline gags, but her acerbic remarks don't really fit with the film's tone. Kinnaman, a red hot rising star set to lead his own Robocop franchise, does solid if unspectacular work. He's hurt by the lack of definition in his character more than anything else. The same goes for veteran greats Bill Pullman and Debra Winger as Lola's parents, who are a joy for the few fleeting moments we get to see them on screen. Greta Gerwig is such an immense talent, however, that it's hard to completely write the film off. Unconventionally beautiful, yet approachable and believable in a way many actresses simply aren't, she's also one of the most photogenic. New York's natural beauty has been captured so many times in movies that it's sort of become old hat, but Gerwig makes it feel special again. More vibrant. It's incredible her ability to make bad movies seem like good ones. What's unfortunate is that she has to do it so often.
