Lola Versus

(USA, 2012, 87 mins)

Executive Producer: Philip Moross
Producers: Jocelyn Hayes, Michael London, Janice Williams
Coproducer: Matthew Myers
Associate Producer: Jonathan Starch
Cinematographer: Jakob Ihre
Editors: Suzy Elmiger, Susan Littenberg
Cast: Greta Gerwig, Zoe Lister Jones, Hamish Linklater

Rated: R

Actress, playwright, director Greta Gerwig came out of the mumblecore movement and went mainstream with No Strings Attached. Next she played against Russell Brand in Arthur. Before the camera Gerwig possesses some kind of innate ability to invest the most obvious of situations with layers of wit and meaning.

She, playing Lola, is, as the title suggests, the center of everything in this refreshingly truthful romantic comedy. And (as the title suggests) everything is going against her. Well, not at the beginning—for example, not while we watch her picking out her wedding dress with a kind of cackling glee. But pretty soon thereafter, when Mr. Would-Be changes his mind, Lola gets catapulted right out of her perfectly on-track 29-year-old life into a kind of second adolescence. We're talking some serious confusion.

Two friends attempt to be helpful. There's platonic man-pal Hamish Linklater from the CBS sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine (he has a crush on her, come on). And then sidekick Zoe Lister-Jones (NBC's Whitney) who has a remarkable penchant for dropping verbal bombs with sarcastic candor. Lister-Jones co-wrote and co-executive-produced with her partner Daryl Wein, who directed. This project builds on that duo's previous semi-autobiographical indie feature Breaking Upwards. Bill Pullman and Debra Winger show up as Lola's hippie parents. Bad advice abounds.


- PW

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