I FOUND this film to be charming but I’m blessed if I can explain why.

Greta Gerwig (who co-wrote the screenplay with director Noah Baumbach) plays Frances, in her late twenties, a dancer whose aspirations don’t match her ability, unemployed, dependent on friends for a place to stay a while.

Her best friend is Sophie (Mickey Sumner, who inherited her acting chops from parents Sting and Trudie Styler). At present they are living apart. They may have been lovers. Now the love is of the soul rather than the flesh. And life’s vicissitudes frequently interrupt their togetherness.

The plot is vignettes presenting Frances as a peripatetic soul with a huge capacity for joy of life yet little notion of what she really wants to get from it. Baumbach and editor Jennifer Lame have strung together a relatively brief (86 minutes) collection of relatively extended clips in which Frances skips through a life in New York and Paris that she may think has purpose but that we are concerned for its lack thereof. But her optimism knows no bounds and failure has no place in her lexicon.

Sam Levy’s black and white cinematography is lovely, reminding us again that when the photographer’s vision reduces images to their basics, the result can transcend the emotional effect of glorious colour.

If you don’t expect too much from “Frances Ha”, it’s unlikely to disappoint.

At Capitol 6 and Palace Electric