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80What really elevates Hannah Takes the Stairs is the truly outstanding performance by Greta Gerwig.
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78The film has no script; it goes from moment to moment unhurriedly.
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Intimacy is graphically portrayed, down to recurring moments in a bathtub, including a memorable duet trumpet rendition of "The 1812 Overture." Chop off a star if you're not up for highly experimental cinema.
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75How can a movie with such a charming cast (let's not forget Ry Russo-Young as Hannah's female roommate) and believable dialogue (seemingly taken from the actors' real lives) go wrong? It can't.
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75Shot with intentionally banal anti-style - minimal soundtrack music, found sound, jitter-cam - the movie achieves a wisdom that's bigger than it seems.
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Though the dialogue feels improvised and honest, the movie is less honest in creating its world.
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75Doesn't rise to the level of Bujalski's breakthrough feature "Mutual Appreciation," mainly because Swanberg doesn't have Bujalski's eye.
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70Like most of the men in the film, we would happily follow her anywhere.
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70There's something to be said for cinema this perversely naturalistic.
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67What defines the slacker-geek twentysomething men and women who wander through Joe Swanberg's too-hip-to-be-romantic comedy Hannah Takes the Stairsis that they treat their libidos as minor accessories -- only to stammer through every casual conversation as if they were on a first Internet date.
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60The film's intimacy never feels fake, it's sporadically and unpredictably funny (I didn't exactly enjoy the cacophonous trumpet duet of the "1812 Overture," but I won't soon forget it), and the nonprofessional cast is surprisingly good.
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Though it has merit and is recommended for the curious and adventurous, Joe Swanberg's film wears out its welcome about halfway through its 83 minutes. I'd say it doesn't go anywhere, but that's the point of these movies.
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Less notable for its story than for what the movie itself represents: an evolutionary entry in the so-called Do It Yourself (or D.I.Y.) independent film movement.
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38The loose, rambling conversations that substitute for action might be more interesting if any of the characters were capable of real introspection. But they're so shallow and distracted they can't even manage sustained navel-gazing, which makes their so-called relationships profoundly uninteresting.
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30Has the unmistakable look and feel of a micro-budget indie produced for a small circle of friends, many of whom are listed in the credits.
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