Review No.181: Lola Versus

Plot: Daryl Wein's film stars indie darling Greta Gerwig as the titular Lola a 29 year old who is about to get married only to be dumped by her fiancée three weeks before the wedding. After that Lola embarks on a voyage of self-discovery attempting to complete her doctoral thesis while at the same time sort out her relationship woes by sleeping around. Lola eventually embarks on an ill-fated relationship with her best friend Henry before discovering why her fiancée split up with her in the first place. She is also given various bits of advice from her hippy parents and her actress friend who herself is having trouble finding a man.

Positives: Gerwig tries her best with the lead role of Lola which fits perfectly in her resume of quirky vulnerable young women who are trying to navigate their way through life. The best performances of the film come from Bill Pullman and Debra Winger who are incredibly entertaining as Lola's chilled-out parents. There are a couple of decent gags at the beginning of the film and at just under ninety minutes it doesn't really outstay its welcome.

Negatives: There were long periods of the film which I found completely self-indulgent and really started to loathe the character of Lola at some points. The whole film is centred around the fact that women all want to be settled down by the time they're all thirty and I find that in itself fairly insulting. After her break-up Lola's romance with best friend Henry is fairly excruciating as is her encounter with a handsome man who likes talking about fish a lot. The male characters generally are woefully underwritten and are either presented as needy intellectuals or self-obsessed morons while even Lola herself doesn't feel real. Co-writer Zoe Lister Jones has seemingly given herself all the best lines as Lola's mate Alice but even her character feels somewhat over-the-top as all her lines relating to her sex life don't ring true.

Verdict: Despite some game performances and a few decent gags Lola Versus is just too quirky for its own good to the extent where it just doesn't feel real and for those reasons I can only award it 5.5/10