Frances Ha
Director: Noah Baumbach
Cast: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Adam Driver
Length: 86 minutes
Country: USA
Frances Ha reinforces the idea that you only need a few simple elements to make a great film. The protagonist dances down a New York street, gorgeously photographed in black-and-white, accompanied by an excellent choice of music: David Bowie’s Modern Love. It is an overly romanticized view of New York, but this is what Noah Baumbach is going for. He is following in the Woody Allen view of New York as opposed to the Martin Scorcese one. Baumbach identifies with Frances to such an extent that her positive worldview informs the mood and tone of the film. The result is an updated version of Manhattan for the modern age. Baumbach said that he shot the film in monochrome in order to ‘boil it down to its barest bones’ and create ‘a kind of instant nostalgia’. The result is a female character study of the highest aesthetic calibre, the kind of indie production in short supply during this summer’s big budget extravaganza.
Frances Ha focuses on the economic plight of Frances Handley, a twenty-seven year old dancer going through a quarter-life crisis. Greta Gerwig, who also co-wrote the screenplay, plays Frances. If acted out by a lesser actress this film could have come off as self-indulgent and annoying, especially as she is in every single scene. However, Gerwig has an immense like-ability, sense of humour, and endearing awkwardness. In this respect she is reminiscent of Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, an attractive woman, not because of her looks, but because of her character. Frances is the classic archetype of the post-college ‘adultescent‘ who is finding it difficult to move on from her insulated bubble of university and the reliability of her parents.
This is a refreshing and positive film that seeks to give authenticity to the young female voice in modern society
Frances apprentices at a dance company and lives in a New York apartment with her best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner). When the two of them are together they regress to a pre-adult stage; the opening scene of the film shows them play fighting in a park. Trouble starts when Sophie moves out with her boyfriend and Frances is let go from her dance company. Her journey to find her own place represents the narrative thrust of the movie, as she moves between New York, Sacramento, Paris and back to her Alma Mata: Vassar College, trying to fit in to a world which is growing up faster than she is. By constantly looking backward instead of forward, her life becomes static. There are scenes of an apparent aimless nature, but this is appropriate given the subject, these scenes clearly reflect her life. Only by learning to compromise her dreams as she does near the end of the movie does she finally move forward, and this reveals a positive message about dealing with the life you have, and learning to make the most of it.
This is a refreshing and positive film that, accompanied by the TV series Girls, seeks to give authenticity to the young female voice in modern society. It successfully passes the Bechdel test, where two female characters talk about something other than men, and it goes further than Girls by not having to rely on sex scenes to move the plot forward. The film doesn’t fall back to cliché where a woman needs a man to make her happy, but a sense of self-fulfillment instead, suggesting that sometimes the most important person to believe in is yourself.
I would recommend Frances Ha to anyone who is worried about his or her financial situation in the future. It presents somebody relatable to you, and shows that, although it may take some time, everything little thing is going to be all right.
Comments