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Lola Versus: movie review (+trailer)

( R ) ( Monitor Movie Guide )

Protagonist Lola is a believable heroine for our times, and the movie avoids tying everything up in a big bright bow.

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Myles Aronowitz/Fox Searchlight/AP
Protagonist Lola, played by Greta Gerwig (r.), has a lightly amusing series of misadventures in the film 'Lola Versus.'
  • By Peter Rainer Film critic

In “Lola Versus,” gawky Greta Gerwig plays Lola, who, at 29, is jilted by her cold-feet fiancé just short of the altar. This comes as a big surprise to her. She spends most of the rest of the movie trying to cope with the upheaval with binge eating, makeup sex, and relying on the remarkably inept advice of her wisecracking friend Alice (Zoe Lister-Jones, who also co-wrote the script with director Daryl Wein). Lola is, in other words, a believable heroine for our times.

Her lightly amusing series of misadventures have a graceful arc, and Gerwig and Hamish Linklater, who plays Lola’s best friend, Henry, have a nuzzly rapport. It’s a sweet little diddle of a movie that doesn’t make the mistake of tying everything up in a big bright bow. Grade: B+ (Rated R for language, sexuality, and drug use.)

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