Frances Ha focuses on Frances, a 27 year old dancing apprentice living in various shared apartments in New York. The movie begins with a montage of Frances and Sophie, her flat mate who Frances constantly refers to as “the same person with another haircut”. They are college friends and tell each other stories about how they will conquer the world, only things are starting to happen for Sophie, but not so much for Frances.
This is a very naturalistic film. It felt like a piece of someone’s life laid out in front us and is more character driven than plot driven. A coming of age story for the struggling artists out there, and for everyone approaching 30 without a clear path forward.
Frances, while quirky, never feels over the top, and Greta Gerwig injects a lot of vulnerability and even some self distance into the performance. While Frances makes impulsive decisions and at times seems to shoot herself in the foot she still maintains her optimism and she keeps finding a way forward. The characters around her add to the naturalistic style, although the view of New York you get is one that is full of artists with rich parents or ridiculously successful youngsters - probably much like Frances sees it. One exchange between her and friend Benji (with rich parents) has him calling her out on her self-proclaimed poverty. “You are not poor. It’s insulting to real poor people”, and while he has a point it also shows his lack of compassion when it comes just moments before he talks about getting a maid in “It’s not very expensive. Like 400 dollars a month”.
The film is shot beautifully in black and white. Other than one excruciating dinner party scene, it is also an easy film to watch, that carries you through at a good pace, with some scenes lingering whilst others rush past, like Frances’ visit to her parents over Christmas, a hilarious montage that still feels realistic and warm. In the end this movie has a lot of love for its characters, particularly Frances, and it conveys that love to us.
Fraser and Paula have always had a rift over the “bad things happens to bad people”-genre, but here we agree that neither of us like to see bad things happen to nice people, and we were both eager for Frances to turn things around and reach some sort of happy ending.
Will it make it into the cupboard? Yes
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