Frances Ha
Dec. 26th, 2013 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI just watched the movie Frances Ha, which reminds me of Girls - but an odd mirror image of Girls, where the characters are still lovable despite their faults and where hope for human connection remains a real thing rather than a fool’s dream.
Frances is quirky, but in an alienating rather than an immediately lovable way; the thing that makes her gaucheness lovable, even lends it a touch of tragedy, is that we can see her yearning to connect. There’s a dinner party, a key scene in the movie: Frances tries very hard to be charming and put together, but mostly ends up being awkward and out of sync, so even when her comments are not oversharing, they come so badly timed that they feel like an interruption.
What she wants, she explains, is that thing when you're with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it... but it's a party... and you're both talking to other people, and you're laughing and shining... and you look across the room and catch each other's eyes... but - but not because you're possessive, or it's precisely sexual... but because... that is your person in this life. And it's funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it's this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about.
This is beautiful, but you can see why all the other dinner party guests feel unnerved by Frances’s intensity. They’ve just met her, and she’s telling them her deepest hopes and dreams?
Frances once had this connection with her best friend Sophie: but they’ve been drifting apart ever since Sophie moved out of their apartment, not because they had a fight, but because she had the opportunity to live in Tribeca. Sophie will have to live with someone she can hardly stand, and she’ll be leaving behind her best friend to do it...but it’s Tribeca. She’s always dreamed of living in Tribeca. If you live in Tribeca, you know you’ve arrived.
And after that, things just drift. Sophie gets more serious with her boyfriend, Patch, even though she doesn’t seem to like him - or at least, Frances thinks Sophie doesn’t like him; it’s hard to know what Sophie is thinking, because both the viewers and Frances get only very limited access to her thoughts. This is a new development in their friendship, but it’s unclear why Sophie has pulled away. Is getting married before she turns thirty another item on her “successful person” list?
On the verge of moving to Japan with Patch, Sophie calls Frances to extend an olive branch: her going away party is that night, and she wants Frances to come. Frances is on an impulsive trip to Paris, which makes it impossible for her to attend. But although Frances is clearly desperate to make sure Sophie knows that Frances isn't blowing her off, that she truly can’t attend, she never explains that she’s in Paris: to explain that she’s on an impulsive weekend trip might entail explaining that her career as a modern dancer is on the rocks, and she just can’t do it, even though they both yearn so much to reconnect that they are all but attempting to climb through the phone.
What is striking to me is the extent to which this is caused by success, or rather, the gap between their definitions of success and the things that actually make them happy. When things go wrong, either in their friendship or their careers, they can’t admit that they’ve messed up, so they only dig themselves deeper.
It is, for all this, a delicately hopeful movie: even if they can't quite work things out, they want to. It's beautifully shot and choreographed as well: the scene where Frances dances through New York City is simply beautiful: it's goofy and lively and fun. There's a lot of sadness in the movie, but it also shows pure joy in a way I've rarely seen on film.
Frances is quirky, but in an alienating rather than an immediately lovable way; the thing that makes her gaucheness lovable, even lends it a touch of tragedy, is that we can see her yearning to connect. There’s a dinner party, a key scene in the movie: Frances tries very hard to be charming and put together, but mostly ends up being awkward and out of sync, so even when her comments are not oversharing, they come so badly timed that they feel like an interruption.
What she wants, she explains, is that thing when you're with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it... but it's a party... and you're both talking to other people, and you're laughing and shining... and you look across the room and catch each other's eyes... but - but not because you're possessive, or it's precisely sexual... but because... that is your person in this life. And it's funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it's this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about.
This is beautiful, but you can see why all the other dinner party guests feel unnerved by Frances’s intensity. They’ve just met her, and she’s telling them her deepest hopes and dreams?
Frances once had this connection with her best friend Sophie: but they’ve been drifting apart ever since Sophie moved out of their apartment, not because they had a fight, but because she had the opportunity to live in Tribeca. Sophie will have to live with someone she can hardly stand, and she’ll be leaving behind her best friend to do it...but it’s Tribeca. She’s always dreamed of living in Tribeca. If you live in Tribeca, you know you’ve arrived.
And after that, things just drift. Sophie gets more serious with her boyfriend, Patch, even though she doesn’t seem to like him - or at least, Frances thinks Sophie doesn’t like him; it’s hard to know what Sophie is thinking, because both the viewers and Frances get only very limited access to her thoughts. This is a new development in their friendship, but it’s unclear why Sophie has pulled away. Is getting married before she turns thirty another item on her “successful person” list?
On the verge of moving to Japan with Patch, Sophie calls Frances to extend an olive branch: her going away party is that night, and she wants Frances to come. Frances is on an impulsive trip to Paris, which makes it impossible for her to attend. But although Frances is clearly desperate to make sure Sophie knows that Frances isn't blowing her off, that she truly can’t attend, she never explains that she’s in Paris: to explain that she’s on an impulsive weekend trip might entail explaining that her career as a modern dancer is on the rocks, and she just can’t do it, even though they both yearn so much to reconnect that they are all but attempting to climb through the phone.
What is striking to me is the extent to which this is caused by success, or rather, the gap between their definitions of success and the things that actually make them happy. When things go wrong, either in their friendship or their careers, they can’t admit that they’ve messed up, so they only dig themselves deeper.
It is, for all this, a delicately hopeful movie: even if they can't quite work things out, they want to. It's beautifully shot and choreographed as well: the scene where Frances dances through New York City is simply beautiful: it's goofy and lively and fun. There's a lot of sadness in the movie, but it also shows pure joy in a way I've rarely seen on film.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 05:18 pm (UTC)This doesn't affect the film at all, or shouldn't, but it's funny how I'm reconfiguring my mental sense of it.
Anyway, that's a beautiful quote from Frances. I think maybe I'd like to keep just that; I get the feeling if I saw the film, it would only detract from what's expressed in that one quote.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-27 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-27 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-27 10:17 pm (UTC)Not-quite-grown-up in both the bad sense, but also the good sense, I think, of treasuring intense childlike joy and enthusiasm.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-27 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-27 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-28 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 07:17 am (UTC)AND THEN how amazing when she turns around and asks to stay in the Paris flat? And it's impossible for them to say no! Sometimes I wondered if Frances was at least kind of aware of how disarming her honesty and openness could be, and used it.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 04:57 pm (UTC)And I loved the random trip to Paris! I'm not sure how much Frances was aware of anything in that scene. She seems to out of sync with everyone at the dinner party, I kind of think she didn't realize that the apartment in Paris was a polite offer they never thought she'd take them up on.
But one of the interesting things about the movie is that it's hard to tell how aware Frances is of anything: she's our viewpoint character, but we don't get a lot of insight into her thoughts, let alone anyone else's. (I'm still kind of flummoxed by Sophie's determination to marry a man she doesn't even like!)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 01:16 pm (UTC)(Though, I'm not sure at all that Sophie doesn't like Patch. I think that's one of the warping effects of Frances as POV character - she never sees Sophie's good moments with Patch, just as she never anticipates Sophie moving out on her. It would be so fascinating to see what the movie's story looks like from Sophie's perspective...)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 04:44 pm (UTC)But she does seem awfully ambivalent about him, given that they're planning to get married. When she's drunk she tells Frances she wants to leave him, but when she's sober again she goes back. I wonder if there's an element there of telling Frances what Frances wants to hear, though...
But at the same time, I think Sophie meant it: just not enough to act on it when she's sober enough to think about the consequences of ditching him. All the years she's put into the relationship, wasted. A job she loved, gone, because she left it for Patch. The engagement ring taken back...and so forth.