This latest from independent US filmmaker Noah Baumbach is a joy, which is something I never thought I’d find myself writing. Baumbach’s turf has been angsty dramas about New York intellectuals like The Squid and the Whale. His debut, Kicking and Screaming, has been his only comedy to date and that was nearly 20 years ago and more acerbically droll than infectious.

This time, though, he’s teamed up with actor Greta Gerwig, his current belle, and it’s a creative marriage forged in heaven or at least the Manhattan equivalent. Gerwig, who co-wrote the script with Baumbach, plays the eponymous Frances, an adorably klutzy, late 20s girl-women and aspiring ballerina, caught at that difficult moment where her career and romantic life should be taking off but just aren’t going anywhere. That doesn’t stop her from moments of giddy, child- like pleasure with best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner).

Baumbach has made a female answer to Woody Allen’s Annie Hall as if directed by Truffaut or the Godard of Breathless, an insouciant film that blends lightness and spontaneity with everyday frustration and heartache. It may seem nobody had to work too hard to make this happy-sad soufflé, but I bet you they did.