Pretty, perky 29-year-old grad student Lola (Greta Gerwig) is dumped by her cutie fiancé (Joel Kinnaman) right before the wedding. Naturally, she embarks on a film-friendly meltdown, lolling about in sleep clothes, eating junk food and enduring bad nights out engineered by her BFF, Alice (Zoe Lister-Jones). She also seeks solace on the shoulders of Henry (Hamish Linklater), the indie-rock dude whom Alice is sweet on. (Uh oh!)
This Manhattan-set rom-com/character study is the product of the writing-directing team of Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein (Breaking Upwards), and while it's sunny and somewhat amusing, it also feels more calculated to please than wise and original. It's a standard girl-learns-to-be-herself plot, larded with self-consciously hip references. These beautiful young things pining in enviable apartments, whom we're supposed to worry about, are just familiar figures from other rom-coms, slightly gritted up. If you were one of the haters who thought HBO's recent Girls series — which explores similar turf — was too obtuse and didn't give you anybody luminously likable to root for, Lola might be the palatable vehicle you were hoping for. Starts Fri., June 29. AMC Loews
