This is a decent flick..pretty funny, but the one thing that I really dislike is the fact that Lola (Greta Gerwig)uses the term "deaf-mute" to describe her friend's character when she goes to see her play. First of all, there is no such person as a 'deaf-mute' unless they are deaf and have had their vocal chords removed. This is 2013 and I am certain many people were involved in making this film. I am surprised that no one at all knows that the term is not only offensive, but completely inaccurate. Just an FYI, and I hope someone will read this and "ALERT THE MEDIA"!! Thanks :) I don't usually base a review entirely on the use of an offensive word, or phrase but this is just so ridiculous, and I continue to hear it in so many films. Otherwise, Lola Versus is fun, quirky and over the top regarding sex,and her seemingly self loathing actions. The other characters are also really strange and quirky, but I think that is what makes it a decent film. It's like, we all know someone like them, albeit not quite so dramatic. There is a lot of irony in this film and some of the scenes are similar to the humor in Napolean Dynamite (which I loved), so that is not a bad thing. So, overall, funny film. If they could only edit out the deaf-mute part, it would be even better!
... View MoreA 4.6 rating average? Why? What was so bad about this movie? I read the other reviews to see whether there was something I missed... Nope. Some of the other reviewers don't even have the characters' names straight. And I concluded that most of them didn't get the movie at all. I sincerely hope they didn't get it because they've never been through anything similar. So I decided to write a review of my own, and praise this highly underrated movie.Lola is at a high-point in her life. She lives in New York City, she is working on her PhD thesis, and she is about to marry her dreamy-looking boyfriend of years. If it seems too good to be true it probably is. When the above-mentioned boyfriend gets cold feet and dumps her, everything comes crumbling down. She cries, comfort-eats, sleeps on the floor and goes to school looking like a zombie. She employs her two best friends, Alice and Henry, to help her get out of this funk. Things get complicated in the process though, mostly due to her feeling confused and ambivalent... Enter the classic coming-of-age, finding yourself stuff, the "choosing to be alive" as Lola phrases it. Sprinkled with some hilarious spot-on bits of dialogue, usually from Alice (Zoe Lister Jones), the friend who's there mainly for the comic-relief, and does excellent in it I might add.I have to agree here with some of the negative critique. Yes, it is difficult to feel sorry for Lola when she lives in a beautiful New York apartment, walks around in cute little skirts and high heels looking gorgeous, continues to look gorgeous despite all the comfort-eating, and sleeps with three different guys in the course of an 87 min movie. True that. However, the emotional turmoil, obsessive thinking, failing to accept reality, and all those feelings that follow a heartbreak were there, mindfully portrayed. Greta Gerwig was an ideal choice for the part, since she evokes this next-door-girl quality that makes it easy for the audience to sympathize and identify with her. I also found her little flaws of the "wholesome" diet and the cleansing potion thermos super funny! At parts of the movie I could guess what the next line was going to be, and not because it was predictable; because it was genuine and it felt real.
... View MoreThis movie stinks on ice. Don't even bother. Set in NYC, Lola (Greta Gerwig) discovers on her 29th birthday her life will turn upside down. When her fiancé Luke (Joel Kinnaman) calls off their wedding three weeks before the ceremony, she is bereft. Her parents (the sole bright spot in the movie is Debra Winger and Bill Pullman as doped-out hippies) are sympathetic, as is her friend Alice (Zoe Lister Jones) well as her fiancé's best friend Henry (Hamish Linklater, who is much, much better in "Battleship"). The self-obsessed Lola might as well be a tornado. She leaves devastation in her wake with everyone she knows. When she winds up alone, she must reassess everything and try to start over as she turns 30. There is a rambling plot, goes nowhere and does nothing. Truly, don't bother with this movie. I am amazed it even got made. It's that bad.
... View MoreI suppose you need to be in a New York state of mind to enjoy "Lola Versus," but, Phillistine that I am, I just could not pull it off. I also know exactly what many of the smug, self-styled intellectual reviewers are going to write and say about this film. That it's smart, quirky, snappy, gritty, real and funny.Don't believe any of that.Once again, I know I will be in the minority opinion, but to this scribbler, it's nothing but a series of unrelated sentences that seeks to substitute for a coherent script; a junk drawer full of supposedly wry and witty bon mots desperately in search of a plot, written by someone with Attention Deficit Disorder. It seemingly wants to be as clever as "Juno," but does not want to work for it. Of course, it's handicapped because it has neither the intelligence, charm or talent featured in that film. In fact, it's not even a low-rent "500 Days Of Summer," the next picture on the "Will-I-ever-find-true-love-again" bandwagon."Lola Versus" is the follow-up to "Breaking Upwards" from writer/director team Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones, where the filmmakers attempted to use conventional romcom figures of speech to jump-start conversations that ultimately went nowhere. This goes twice as much for Wein's latest release.He isn't given much to work with, however. In "Lola," we get actors such as Greta Gerwig ("No Strings Attached"), Joel Kinnaman ("Safe House," "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), Hamish Linklater ("Battleship"), Lister-Jones ("The Other Guys," "Salt") and Ebon Moss-Bachrach ("The Lake House," Higher Ground").Oh sure, we also see veteran Bill Pullman (whose last significant work was "Rio Sex Comedy") and Academy Award-nominated (for "An Officer and a Gentleman" and "Terms of Endearment") actress, Debra Winger; both are wasted, though, as a terminally high father and nagging mother, respectively.Here, Gerwig plays the eponymous character, who lives in New York and has one of those New York lives that exist only in movies like this. She lives in a perfect, rent-controlled apartment and is engaged to uber stud, Luke (Kinnaman). It seems to be a match made in Heaven, until a chronic case of cold feet causes him to dump her three weeks before the wedding.This can happen. I personally know of a situation similar, but no one is going to put THAT story up on the big screen. Lola takes it hard - very hard. She sleeps for what seems like months (only waking to eat a few potato chips and wallow in self-pity, much like the audience). Later, her friend, Alice (Jones), tries to console her by taking her to singles bars and getting her plastered at private parties.Lola pays her back by sleeping with Alice's on-again, off-again boyfriend, Henry (Linklater), who plays in the world's lamest band. Their relationship begins with an innocent sleep-but-don't-touch thing, but soon devolves into a full-blown affair.And, since Gerwig's character is a 29-year old New Yorker, she is shallow, annoying, promiscuous and completely self-absorbed. She's also a pothead and an alcoholic, to boot. Plus, not since Kristin Wiig's embarrassing "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" breakdown in "Bridesmaids," do we get a female that goes Hollywood mental at just the wrong time (just because she sees Nick talking to another girl).All of this while trying to get her life back on track. However, she falls back into her old habits by cheating on her rebound guy with Nick Oyster (Moss-Bachrach), a well-endowed fish salesman (get it?). Lola has sex with him, then complains because he's bothers her, which is certainly the pot calling the kettle black here.Finally, Nick, seeing the error of his ways comes back into her life, and, of course, Lola forgives him and - gasp - has sex with him (how novel, a male character she sleeps with). In fact, she has baseless, passionless, meaningless intercourse so many times, it frankly becomes as irritating as Gerwig's empty, one-note performance.It's also very hard to feel sorry for someone who constantly blubbers because she cannot find love, yet has a perfect face and body, a full support group and seemingly beds every man in the Bronx. We all have our troubles and few tears are going to be wasted on her situation.Lister-Jones, who is equally bothersome most of the time, although a bit less self-centered as Lola, is probably the best thing about this movie (and that is certainly not saying very much). It's sad though, that while she steals every scene she's in, it's all petty larceny in the end. None of the other characters even approach empathy, chemistry or believability.All the while, the writing tandem attempts a viewer connection by name-dropping such entities as Facebook, match.com and Yelp!, but they spoil everything by practically waving their hands about frantically and shouting, "Hey! We're smarter than all of you! This movie is what life, love and finally growing up is really all about!" As previously written, don't believe that for a minute.
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