Average Rating: 5.8/10
Reviews Counted: 46
Fresh: 27 | Rotten: 19
Although not terribly focused, Hannah Takes the Stairs contains refreshing realism.
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Critic Reviews: 14
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 3
Although not terribly focused, Hannah Takes the Stairs contains refreshing realism.
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Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 2,609
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American independent filmmaker Joe Swanberg's 2007 feature Hannah Takes the Stairs concerns Hannah (Greta Gerwig), a recent college graduate who spends one long, unsatisfying summer in the Windy City attempting to achieve romantic fulfillment in a seemingly endless series of relationships. Drifting in and out of infatuation, but never quite reaching satisfaction, Hannah begins to pose an emotional threat to herself and those around her. The picture co-stars filmmakers Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha
Aug 22, 2007 Wide
Apr 22, 2008
IFC First Take
All Critics (47) | Top Critics (14) | Fresh (28) | Rotten (20) | DVD (3)
Joe Swanberg's film wears out its welcome about halfway through its 83 minutes.
[Director] Swanberg nails the inane fun of youth.
Chop off a star if you're not up for highly experimental cinema.
Perfectly encapsulates the slow-motion, frustrated feeling of early adulthood, when longing and inchoate desire easily outnumber actual transformative events and achievements.
Gerwig proves herself to be a charming screen presence who manages to make her character somehow appealing despite her utter self-involvement.
Hannah is charmingly self-absorbed without the extenuating circumstance of self-knowledge. Above all, she's young. The movie forgives her for that and, with occasional misgivings, so do we.
Smart and engaging, but too many meandering breeze-shooting sequences.
It's never enough to establish any sensitivity or social pertinence beyond the trifling tiffs which are playing out on screen.
Less dazed and confused than mumbling and mundane, this drama focuses on social awkwardness and twentysomething blues. Skipping aimlessly from scene to scene it offers little observations and rewards low expectations.
There's only so much twentysomething navel-gazing one can listen to before wanting to slap some sense - and some fully formed sentences - into them all.
There is something teeth-grindingly cutesy about the whole thing, reaching epic levels of dippiness in the, ahem, nude trumpet-playing scenes. That makes it sound interesting, come to think of it, and perhaps it is.
For every revelatory moment of sharp perception there's an eternity of goofy smiles, stuttered dialogue and embarrassed glances.
Hannah Takes the Stairs, the latest comedy of mannerisms in the "mumblecore" style, is maddening for 60 of its 83 minutes.
The film meanders along in conversational style, encouraging improvisational realism but also the thought that maybe these middle-class characters, not quite slackers, are less interesting than they, or the director, think they are.
Watchable independent drama from the mumblecore crowd, though it's not quite sharp enough, funny enough or insightful enough to really get off the ground and the characters are occasionally irritating.
Goes full blast on geek chatter.
Adlibbing should be left to Catskills comics, TV talk show hosts, and members of Second City, and that's about it. Nowhere in this numbing 80 minutes of moroseness does anyone say anything remotely reasonable or realistic.
Swanberg can be playful behind the camera -- he has a taste for Godardian jump cuts -- and his sense of color is crisp. Gerwig, his millennial Jean Seberg, is no pixie; her captivating ordinariness helps hold the movie together.
No one involved seems to have any thoughts about why people are selfish and cruel to each other, but they're more than willing to complain about it.
Very few of the characters were compelling enough to make the improvised, handheld, do-it-yourself style work. But Hannah is one of them.
March 10, 2008Super Reviewer
This was a painfully awkward movie. It felt very true and in real time so as a result was slow. hannah reminded me of ellen Degeneres. there weren't any real surprises in this film or any incredible laughable moments. The only thing missing from this film was Hannah expressing her true feelings toward her room mate.
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