Lola Versus

"I learned everything I know about being a woman from 90210." Lola (Greta Gerwig)

To watch Greta Gerwig play the eponymous Lola dealing with the cancellation of her wedding 3 weeks before the event by her cold-footed boyfriend, Luke (Joel Kinneman), is to watch a young, already accomplished actress deftly play a doctoral student navigating the emotional potholes of breaking up.

Gerwig is worth the watching while the rest of the film meanders in and out of almost-unconnected episodes with some wit and some clichés. She is so convincingly lost among the ruins of her life that she is believable even when the setups are not. Indeed, it's Gerwig who propels the film, not the uneven scrip of director Daryl Wein and his collaborator, Zoe Lister-Jones.

The film is punctuated by make-up, casual, and silly sex as she finds her way out of depression. To help her is the usual rom-com girlfriend, Alice (Lister-Jones), whose wisecracking ("I gotta go wash my Vagina") helps add comic relief to Lola's melancholic life.

Amid Lola's experimentation with her ex's best friend, Henry (Hamish Linklater), and a pickup, Nick (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), at a fish store are random thoughts about finding the right love or going back to the old love. It's a rather tedious conflict that could be rehashed from some soap and not reflective of HBO's gritty "Girls," if I hear right about the TV sitcom.

It's not that Lola Versus is unreal; on the contrary it is an authentic take on the vagaries of breaking up. However, with as few witty lines and imaginative encounters, it doesn't elevate the argument or provide insight into the anguish and remedies that usually accompany a study of this universal experience.

I would much rather have explored the interesting lives of Lola's loose parents (Lenny and Robin, played by Bill Pullman and Debra Winger) or the challenges of her dissertation on silence in novels. Maybe that's what Lola Versus needs—silence.

Lola (Greta Gerwig) is on top of the world, she is half way through her dissertation on "Silence in 19th Century French Literature" and recently engaged with her hot beau Luke (Joel Kinnaman) on her twenty ninth birthday. Like most often is true in life, if things are too good to be true they usually are and she the swept into a down spin spiral as her plans don't quite turn out like she had planned in her fairy tale life. This witty, cute, and sensitive tale takes in the odyssey of one woman as she presses forward as she lives her turbulent twenties into her confident thirties where she can take charge and realizes that she can be still be a sex kitten with the confidences of a tamed lioness. Directed by Daryl Welin and opens on June 15, Lola Versus is a fun adventure. by Dr. Wilson Trivino

At it's core, this is almost as entertaining as a Romantic Comedy should be. But, the setting for this story about a narcissistic, big-city, gen-Y girl seemed 'off'. I can imagine that girls in many places around the world get a sense of dread for that approaching 3-oh, but it's just not true for women, especially in many urban areas, where serious romance, and courting happens not only before 30, but after. I just can't imagine a girl living in a socially sophisticated place like New York City with a sense of foreboding that age is a limiting factor to finding the one she really should be with. The story also meandered a bit, as it tried to develop a clear direction, but while it was scattered, it finally found a direction at the end.

Already feeling old on her 29th birthday, a perky PhD student who ponders over keeping things exactly as they are but believes that change is inevitable prophesizes that her life will soon be turned upside down. It of course is when her longtime artist boyfriend pops the question, but then her world is shattered when he ends their relationship just weeks before the big date. Now, she has to adjust, or rather evolve (with great difficulty) to living the life of a single woman in the big city as she prepares to enter her thirties; needless to say that the results are quite messy. The characters may be believable but are mostly unappealing, the script is jumbled with awkward lines resulting in ham-fisted attempts at humor, and the frequent emotional outbursts feel forced and out of place. While the setup may be real and relatable there isn't much insight or poignancy to go along with it, and even though Gerwig is somewhat of a bright light, many of the actors aren't really given their due. **

I may understand why Lola Versus is being so underrated, because it's an atypical romantic comedy. A simple, subtle and sometimes naive one when showing a character struggling to repair herself after a traumatic breakup 3 weeks before her wedding with the man she planned to build her entire life with.

So it's completely normal go thru hard times after a situation like that, and always find ourselves in between moments of euphoria and distress, typical symptoms of the dysthymia suffered by any one after the end of a relationship. Her friends, Alice (Zoe Lister Jones) and Henry (Hammish Linklater), will do anything to support her and show other perspectives about the new situation, but every single help seems not enough and will be going thru all the pain that she will finally get self redemption.

After the subtlety of (500) Days Of Summer (2009), people rediscovered what a good romantic comedy means. Lola Versus does not have the same warm appeal or a character that arouses so much compassion like Marc Webb's movie, but it follows the same style when showing human suffering in its purest way, and also the mistakes and flaws attached when overcoming a great disappointment in life. We all had Lola's days and have already been versus the world too at least once in our lives, and this movie couldn't be any more sincere when simply showing all those mixed feelings when you have been caught by surprise like she has. It's easy fall for sympathy for the character and all her anxiety, anguish, confusion and that constant heart pain that is never physically felt but is there somewhere.

It's an uncommon movie and completely different from what we usually see, that's why it may seems uninspired or out of the line, but only who knows what it takes to get the pieces together may understand all the process Lola is going thru, her recovering, her back and forth, and griefs drowned into alcohol and meaningless sex.

A motivating, heartwarming and inspiring movie that develops itself together with the character's step by step progress, with an amazing soundtrack, great dialogs and charismatic characters that are unintentionally funny. For sure is not a movie that will make people talk a lot about or fully understand it at first, but certainly a faithful reproduction of the inner pain, confusion and how people can be so foolish wasting energy trying to repair something that only time heals.

Better appreciated by those who someday were against the world too and exactly know how Lola feels.