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Lola Versus2012 | 87 min | R | 1.85:1
“Lola Versus” is a loaded title pertaining to the main character’s struggles with life. The title is also an apt description for the creative woes that plague this surprisingly loathsome movie. “Lola Versus” flaccid screenwriting. “Lola Versus” punishing clichés. “Lola Versus” idiotic improvisations. “Lola Versus” common sense. The list is endless. Co-writer/director Daryl Wein has a lot of explaining to do with this punishing picture, which submits such contemptuous characters and harebrained situations, yet asks the audience to fall in love with these stock personalities from a failed IFC pilot. The entire film ends up depending on star Greta Gerwig to smile her way out of sticky dramatic situations, but she’s not an actress carrying a significant amount of inspiration to fuel her screen skills. 
Lola (Greta Gerwig) is a 29-year-old woman facing the twilight of her youth, unable to locate stable spiritual ground to help center her hectic life. Dumped by fiancé Luke (Joel Kinnaman), Lola is emotionally destroyed, faced with cleaning up her life while embarking on a grad school thesis concerning the use of silence in literature. With the support of her brassy, dim actress friend Alice (Zoe Lister Jones), Lola begins the arduous process of finding love again, turning immediately to pal Henry (Hamish Linklater) for rebound sex, not fully comprehending his very real feelings for her. Effectively destroying her friendships and attracting the wrong men (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), Lola fights to find a source of romance to cling to, coming to the realization that she’s in dire need of a soulful rehabilitation, not a sexual one. “Lola Versus” is a difficult film to sit through. It resembles a bottom-shelf independent production from the late 1990s, with its self-conscious New York City locations (Wein actually makes time to assemble a touristy montage for Lola and Henry, right out of a chewing gum commercial) and blathering, neuroses-shellacked characters who fight for romance despite possessing personalities that shouldn’t be rewarded with positivity. The picture nearly achieves self-parody at times, especially with Gerwig’s excruciatingly slack delivery and Jones’s acidic attempt to embody the standard-issue gal pal character, spending every moment onscreen endeavoring to be the most hilarious human in the room. Considering Jones co-wrote the script, it’s astounding that she didn’t claim the titular role for herself. Her barbed, insufferable performance is a possible result of this cruel backstage oversight. 
As is the custom with city-dwelling twentysomethings, love doesn’t come easy. However, in “Lola Versus,” love doesn’t come at all. Or at least recognizable waves of attraction and kindness most people expect out of a relationship picture. Jones and Wein have convinced themselves their script is a multifaceted dissection of a contemporary woman on the verge of a breakdown, but they often mistake grotesque behavior for a bizarre form of vulnerability, captured in a sequence where Lola attempts to nurse her wounds by dating a creepy hippie-type (Moss-Bachrach in a humiliating performance) with body issues. Without knowing the man, she engages in unprotected sex. She protests, he swears he’s clean. End of scene. I can’t wait for the potential sequels: “Lola Versus AIDS.” “Lola Versus an Unplanned Pregnancy” “Lola Versus a Curious yet Persistent Genital Itch.” This is our hero, ladies and gentlemen, and she’s a real dope. I’m all for fallible personalities, but this movie turns Lola into a fairly reprehensible character, while crude editing erases the complexity of her relationships with Luke and Henry. The rush to end this thing (clocking in at just under 80 minutes) decimates the potential discomfort facing the social group, finding the story blazing through or simply hurdling confrontations, making the relationships confusing without a crystal clear read of everyone’s true emotional state. The production plays a foggy game of love and it doesn’t work, taking a sitcom route to authentic matters of the heart. 
For the brave, there are supporting turns from Bill Pullman and Debra Winger as Lola’s parents, and a soundtrack of twee songs from a band called Fall On Your Sword, which happens to be my 11th favorite quote from “Flash Gordon.” I’d write that those elements are the highlights of the movie, but there are no highlights in this movie. “Lola Versus” supplies a chokehold of obnoxiousness and unintentional absurdity that’s impossible to endure, concluding with a transparently symbolic gesture of independence from the main character. Maybe Lola will find a happier future one day, but it’s probably best for her to get an STD test first. Starring: Greta Gerwig, Hamish Linklater, Joel Kinnaman, Bill Pullman, Debra Winger, Maria Dizzia Director: Daryl Wein » See full cast & crew |
 
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