It's funny, you can rallye see the mentor-trainee relationship between the two by the way Peter challenges Noah's choices, and especially by Noah's nervousness everytime he does.
It's not wildly original - no. But you're totally wrong in calling it a 'blatant Rohmer rip-off.' It also 'rips off' Woody Allen's Manhattan and the early 60s New Wave films, specifically those of Truffaut and Godard. Thematically it is fairly original; Frances herself is a refreshing character, and considering Baumbach wears his influences on his sleeve, it's not really ripping off, but homage or pastiche. In a form which has now been around for 123(ish) years, to be truly original is near impossible. Post-modernism demands pastiche of its decaying art forms; Frances Ha is just a part of this trend. It's not that it's unoriginal but that everything these days is, in a sense, unoriginal.
It’s a fantastic film. Is it inspired? Yea. Is it original? How many ideas are anymore…(?) It’s getting harder and harder to tell the same old story in a new way, man. How many films are there in existence?
