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Hannah Takes the Stairs

United States

2007

83 Min
Color
1.66:1
English
  • Currently 2.8/5 Stars.
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DIR Joe Swanberg

EXEC Rajen Savjani

PROD Anish Savjani, Joe Swanberg

SCR Joe Swanberg, Greta Schröder, Kent Osborne

DP Joe Swanberg

CAST Greta Gerwig, Kent Osborne, Andrew Bujalski, Ry Russo-Young, Mark Duplass, Todd Rohal, Tipper Newton, Kris Swanberg, Kevin Bewersdorf, Ivan Albertson

ED Joe Swanberg

MUSIC Kevin Bewersdorf

SXSW (Spotlight Premieres), London (World Cinema)

Synopsis

Hannah, a recent college graduate, spends a brutally hot Chicago summer falling in and out of love. As she struggles to find personal and professional fulfillment through various relationships with friends and co-workers, she risks leaving destruction in her wake. –Visit Films

Director

Original

Joe Swanberg

Joe Swanberg (born August 31, 1981) is an American independent filmmaker and actor.

Known for micro-budget dramas which make extensive use of improvisation, Swanberg is considered a major figure in the mumblecore film movement. His films often focus on relationships, sex, technology, and the filmmaking process.

Swanberg was born on August 31, 1981 in Detroit. He attended Southern Illinois University at Carbondale as a film major, earning a Bachelor’s Degree in 2003. Two years later, Swanberg directed his first feature, Kissing on the Mouth. He followed it with LOL (2006), which marked Swanberg’s first time working with actress Greta Gerwig. Gerwig and Swanberg collaborated on the director’s next two features: Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007), which also starred filmmakers Andrew Bujalski, Ry Russo-Young, and Mark Duplass and marked Swanberg’s first collaboration with animator and actor Kent Osborne; and Nights and Weekends (2008), on which Gerwig shared a directing credit… read more

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Jørgen Lien

22Feb13

Sweetly self-indulgent, highlighting both the strengths and weaknesses of mumblecore minimalism, it survives on unconventional screen chemistry.

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Sunrise

31Jul12

As Gerwig and Osborne struggle through their duet, what results is strong Swanberg poignancy! The logistics of navigating through sight (via musical notation) as well as the physics of instrument keys and lung-powered sounds results in the astouding beauty of musical collaboration. A truly poetic evocation of any working relationship, where proof of validity is somewhat intangible (yet emotive), despite the faults.

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Catherine Krummey

6Jul12

I really liked parts of this.

chanandre likes this

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Yuki Aditya

6May12

Swanberg has a way to not make his characters distant with the viewers as in other films. But the more the characters confused (of what they really want) with themselves, the more he takes us--the viewer--to look inside ourselves. And I think while technically this film isnt polished, the way he edited and put sequence clearly shows he knows how to make drama out of small emotional occurences.

Sunrise likes this

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W184

Joe Swanberg: Ten Films in Two Years

By David Hudson on October 31, 2011

Silver Bullets is playing in New York, Autoerotic is available on demand and The Zone will premiere at the AFI FEST.

read article

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Hannah Takes the Stairs

By Adam Suraf on August 22, 2010
Ultra low-budget and talky slice of life about a series of 20 somethings trying to get their feet off the ground, professionally and romantically, while remaining true to themselves.

Greta Gerwig is…  read review

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