Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007)

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

I think I'm gonna join the mumblecore hating club. It really is only good for those who make it, watching it is too often a vain effort. This one is the worst I've suffered, not much more than an uninspired home video without a script: the ultimate waste of time. Random events and improvised dialogues, redundant and irrelevant, a bunch of friends playing to be actors. If a line or two might be interesting, it's by pure chance. Character decisions are pointless, now I like you now I don't, they could be doing just about anything else and it wouldn't matter. I can't believe I watched the whole thing. I remember a time when low budget films weren't necessarily an endless self-absorbed rambling and characters would actually do things, go places.

This movie is of the so-called "genre" of films referred to as "mumblecore." Which are films made by twenty-somethings dealing with relationships. Thankfully, this appears to have been a very short-lived phenomena, not only because those filmmakers are now in their 30's but perhaps also because those films are inferior.There are so many problems with this movie, where to begin?1) It's obvious that this film was entirely improvised, and that is confirmed by the director in interviews he did. The problem with improvising a movie, is that MOST of the time it simply doesn't work. Not as a movie. Mike Leigh is one notable director (from England) who has done this numerous times with his movies; however, most of the time he has, it's not worked well. It did one time (with "Secrets & Lies"), but from what I read, they worked from a storyline. The director and actors here with "Hannah" clearly didn't. Consequently, there's no story arc. There's no arc to the characters, emotionally or otherwise. Nobody is any different at the end than they were at the beginning. At least if you watch paint dry, it's wet at the beginning and dry at the end -- and that's at least something.The coterie of talent assembled here, by and large, do not have the talent to pull this off successfully. That's not really a slam against them; most people in the world cannot pull this off successfully.2) The next biggest problem? Actors must be truly talented AT IMPROVISATION, to be able to do this engagingly beyond a couple minutes. These actors aren't. I don't mean to be unkind here, but being able to improvise is a particular skill in the acting arena, and not everyone has it. At least at the point this film was made, these actors -- all of them -- didn't have it. Duplass is a step above all the others, but even he doesn't pull it off as it could/should have been.How do you know when an actor isn't really good at improvisation? Their performance doesn't grab you or entertain you. It's dull or mediocre. Part of this (but not all) has to do with non-specificity by the actor. Meaning, they're acting "generally" and without drawing upon "real" experiences. Every single performance in "Hannah" is general -- and that's due to the story being improvised, the scenes being improvised, and the actors doing NO homework/study on who they were, their characters or their backgrounds. Maybe it's because they're lazy. Or maybe it's because they don't understand what makes any performance a good or powerful performance. Even Greta Gerwig's emotional breakdown at the end is SO drab & boring & one-note that it simply does not captivate the viewer. Plus, it goes on forever, which detracts even further from the scene. Less is more. (That the director clearly didn't get.)There's a reason certain actors are vaunted in our culture (or the world), like say, Meryl Streep. When you view any role she's ever done, her work is specific. So specific, it's captivating. Same with De Niro. Two actors, incidentally, who are notorious for studying and working on their roles before filming starts.The actors in "Hannah" are neither captivating, nor even interesting. Which is mostly their fault, but also that of the director. With all the films the director has now done since this movie, I would hope he's better. He's far from exhibiting the talent of a Scorsese, Tarantino, Nolan, Aronofsky, etc., but perhaps he will in the future (or perhaps has with his later projects).Lastly, I probably shouldn't be surprised given the nature of this film, but I was at the absolute lack of any make-up being used at all. Not even the use of "erace" or something similar to cover up some of the actors' acne. Two of the actors had issues with this, and it was quite distracting to see Gerwig in close-ups with a full-on pimple on her nose in a couple scenes. This isn't nor should be some "badge of honor" in the no-budget filmmaking world. Frankly, it's stupid. And so easily & cheaply remedied.

I admit I am not a Woody Allen fan, and I'm sure I'm not the only one out there that feels that way. But his movies have been consistently made for decades. Obviously someone has a thing for him to continuously produce and distribute his versions of comedy and life. So be it. Unfortunately, it's happening again with this group of self-proclaimed, non-actor nobodies, Mark Duplass, Joe Swanberg, etc. How anyone continues to release their "thoughts, ideas and everyday life shots" is beyond me. But, I guess, to each his/her own. I've now seen three of them: 'Baghead' seems to be the best of the bunch. Then the soft-porn excuse: 'Kissing on the Mouth.' And now, 'Hannah Takes the Stairs,' the worst of the three. That's saying a lot, considering 'Kissing' wasn't any good either. But, here we have even less acting, less plot, more face-close ups and more unintentionally hilarious scenes (both appear in the closing, yet another break up where the actors themselves seem to have a hard time from cracking up, it was so unreal. And a naked bath/trumpet scene – really?) Once again in these so-called "Mumblecore" films finds reasons to take women's clothes off for full-frontal nudity (along with the occasional full-frontal male shot, I guess for good measure/balance) and film EVERYTHING in sight. What makes me laugh in these movies is the extras – where they actually have deleted scenes. Seriously? Something was left out? The basic, and I mean they (no joke) had no script, synopsis is a terrible person (Hannah) who "doesn't know" herself/path (you'll hear that a lot) so she uses men and crushes them to "find" herself. Unfortunately, the actors' desire to "not act" in these films pays off and you get no emotion or creditability when she consistently breaks up with men. Advice: Show/Don't Tell.

Dig through your closet, find old home movies, then splice them together via some editing equipment and you are bound to find something more entertaining than this film. The lead actress Greta Gerwig was really good, and its impressive that someone could come off as good in this mess, just imagine what she would be capable of given an actual script. Yea thats right this film was shot without a script, I gotta say I wasn't surprised to hear that. And if you are unlucky enough to see this film you will understand what I mean by that.This film has a rightful place alongside the other mumblecore works, its bad, poorly filmed, but does both start and END so there is that, it has that going for it. The basic plot is this, Hannah is confused, what to do? Thats it, I don't have to elaborate at all, thats the entirety of it.If you come near this film, run in the opposite direction