Frances, a struggling would-be dancer working as an apprentice at a dance company, is unable to afford the Brooklyn apartment alone and is forced to find someplace else to live.

Filming locations included New York City, Sacramento, Paris and at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, Baumbach's alma mater.

Baumbach and Gerwig also have cited the films of the French New Wave and Woody Allen as influences, as well as Something Wild (1986) and Lost in America (1985) which they watched during the production.

By using a very small camera and extremely limited lighting equipment, the production could quickly and easily move locations without attracting much attention.

Without large crews, elaborate sets, and special visual effects, the production could afford to shoot around the world on a fairly limited budget.

[4] "Modern Love" is featured in a scene in Frances Ha that is a remake of a sequence in Leos Carax's Mauvais Sang, where Denis Lavant runs through the streets.

The website's critical consensus is: "Audiences will need to tolerate a certain amount of narrative drift, but thanks to sensitive direction from Noah Baumbach and an endearing performance from Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha makes it easy to forgive.

[16] Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice praised Gerwig's performance, writing, "It's a relief that Frances Ha isn't as assertively frank, in the 'Look, ma, no shame!'

Frances is a little dizzy and frequently maddening, but Gerwig is precise in delineating the character's loopiness: Her lines always hit just behind the beat, like a jazz drummer who pretends to flub yet knows exactly what's up".

He said Frances was "a character whose unexceptional concerns and everyday foibles prove as compelling as any New York-set concept picture, delivering an affectionate, stylishly black-and-white portrait of a still-unfledged Gotham gal".

Frances and Sophie go through the motions of being BFFs to breaking up to being reunited in the end.”[18] The Los Angeles Times highlighted Gerwig's foray as part of a trend of female actors becoming writers or co-writers; other examples include Zoe Kazan with Ruby Sparks and Rashida Jones with Celeste and Jesse Forever.

[5] CBS News compared Frances Ha's style to the works of Woody Allen, Jim Jarmusch and François Truffaut.