Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Joe Swanberg

Writers:

Joe Swanberg (writer) and
Greta Gerwig (writer) ...

Release Date:

22 August 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Hannah is a recent college graduate interning at a Chicago production company. She is crushing on two writers at work...

Plot Keywords:

Mumblecore | Character Name In Title

Cast

Greta Gerwig	...	Hannah
Kent Osborne	...	Matt
Andrew Bujalski	...	Paul
Ry Russo-Young	...	Rocco
Mark Duplass	...	Mike
Todd Rohal	...	Brian Duges
Tipper Newton	...	Minnie
Kris Swanberg	...	Gaby (as Kris Williams)
Kevin Bewersdorf	...	Guy Who Lays Down
Ivan Albertson	...	Stephen

Runtime:

USA:83 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Certification:

Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Film Science

Trivia:

Shot without a script.

Movie Connections:

References E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Soundtrack:

1812 for 2006

Decent attempt at a real, very low-budget film

If you haven't figured this out yet, "Hannah Takes the Stairs" is a really low-budget film. Basically a friend got a video camera and taped the lives of Hannah and her guys. I like to base my reviews on what was good and not good in a movie, so depending on what you crave in a film, it may be good (or not good) to you. I found this movie on my cable's On Demand and decided to watch it because I like watching all movies, and what I can learn from them for my own films.

What they did well: The storyline, for their budget is a very good, simplistic storyline surrounding Hannah and all the guys that she likes. They assumed the audience was intelligent, and didn't need to be spoken to learn who the roommate was, or who the boss was (we can figure that out on our own and they let us). For the most part, at the beginning at least, they didn't draw out scenes, when they wanted to get to the next point of the story, they did it in only one scene or two - they had very few unnecessary scenes (lately big Hollywood blockbusters are getting very bad with nailing the same idea in my head repeatedly with stupid scenes). The "real" moments were good. Like when there's an awkward pause between a girl and a guy, they got those moments right on - I don't think I have seen awkward pauses ever done better than in this movie.

What they did poorly: Hannah. I did not like the character of Hannah, she was annoying, self-absorbed and I don't think many women can relate to her. When you have such a low budget film revolving around characters talking, your main character really does need to be likable, the audience needs to have empathy for the character. I think they really screwed that up here, because I don't think many people liked Hannah. I think I would have liked the roommate if we got to know her better. There was one scene with Hannah and a guy and she was trying to tell him what was wrong, why she's unhappy, but she wasn't speaking clearly and without full sentences - generally that works, I am a girl, and for the most part I know exactly what those characters are thinking, what they want to say and why they can't get the words out. But with Hannah, I don't know what she was trying to say, and I didn't care, so that was one really long, painful scene. Lastly they need a better camera guy. The camera was not held steady enough, and there was no point to zooming in all the time, it added nothing to the story and it was just annoying.

I don't think these filmmakers thought too much about making film because likable main character and camera shots should have been FILM 101 for them at the front of their minds. They should have known better. It also made me realize how good some other low budget films have been. And really, this isn't a film or a movie, more so just a friend with a video camera.