MovieChat Forums > Bad to the Bone (1997) Discussion > Were we supposed to feel pity for France...

Were we supposed to feel pity for Francesca?


I have to admit: I didn't "enjoy" this movie; that is, I didn't enjoy it like I enjoyed, say, STAR WARS. That's not to say it's a bad movie; in fact, for a made-for-TV feature it's actually fairly good. The performances were fine: Swanson was superb at playing a black widow and London equally good at playing a coward. But that's precisely the problem, because I wasn't expecting BAD TO THE BONE to be that well done. I didn't think it was going to be "campy" or "funny," per se; I just thought it would be so badly executed that one couldn't take it seriously. But I ended up taking it VERY seriously, and that got me to wondering something.

If "Frankie" was an unrepentant villain and fully deserving of what happened to her at the end, then why were we made to feel sorry for her? Was that intentional? Because if it is, it makes the viewer's reaction to the story awkward at best.

We see her being a victim of child abuse as a little girl. More importantly, the flashback is being imagined by Danny rather than Frankie. So unless Frankie was somehow able to hypnotize her brother into thinking he saw something that never happened - which would be, to say the least, far-fetched - we have to assume that Frankie really was whipped by her father.

But what would be the point? That violence begets violence? That seems almost like a cop-out. Lots of kids have been beaten throughout history, and they don't necessarily grow up to be psychopaths. (I'm certainly not condoning or excusing child abuse, of course; I'm just stating a fact.)

So I'm wondering if there was meant to be some dark subtext here - something that they couldn't have shown on network TV in 1997, and probably not even nowadays. Was Frankie raped by her father, too? Did it happen to her so often that, after a while, she actually started to enjoy it? Did she feel profound shame about this, and finally conclude that her sexuality was the only arena in which she could wield power? Did she come to the point where she believed: "I'm so disgusting and nobody loves me, so it doesn't matter what I do anymore"?

I don't know if I'm reading too much into this, but this probably would have made for a morbidly interesting theatrical film with a main character even more fascinating than she was on TV.

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I must have missed the part when Danny imagined Frankie getting hit. It kinda doesnt make sense to me why he would beat Frankie and not Danny. I thought Frankie had to explain to Danny what had happened? I thought people didnt really believe that she was in fact hit bc her mother kept saying what a great man for husband was. In terms of the flashback I just assume that Frankie told him what had happened and he imagined what he thought happened to her. Thats at least what I'm thinking. And to answer you question eventhough I do still believe she had narcassist personality disorder even if she was beat by her step father, NPD would still explain why she was so selfish even to the people that definately helped ex. Waldo, who she killed out of her own selfishness. I felt so bad for him and really hoped he would have saved himself in some way bc she owes him so much and she just killed him. He saved her from prison pretty much. That just pissed me off. But anyway to answer your question, maybe they were showing how a killer maybe be formed? idk I really think she had a mental disease.



Lurlynn: It's funny how things don't turn out..
Melanie:It's funny how they do.

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Well, I think it did happen. It's not likely that Danny would be imagining something so vividly if he hadn't actually set eyes on it. He probably would have even shrugged it off or gone into denial, like Marilyn did.

Which brings up something else I just thought of. Did you notice the way Patti D'Arbanville played Marilyn? Maybe it was just my imagination, but I got the sense that, despite her trying to be a responsible mother of two (not quite adult) children in the present, there was a trace of defiance and bitchiness in Marilyn. Maybe she was once like Francesca herself, if you see what I mean. Maybe Frankie and Danny were both bastards, and the child-abuser father figure was Marilyn's THIRD love interest, which is why Frankie refers to him as "your husband." Maybe Marilyn continued her slutty ways at least into the kids' teenage years, when she finally gave it up and settled down - and maybe that's how Frankie was inspired to become so slutty. Marilyn could have been as tolerant of her daughter's indiscretions as she was because she figured that it was only poetic justice.

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In my opinion; I didnt get any of that from Marilyn. She must have remarried and Frankie was so self involved and narcassist that she didnt appreciate everything that her mother did for her. Thats why she made up that story about her getting abused. I highly doubt that her stepfather would hit her and not Danny. Maybe the stepfather was trying to discipline her because she was defiante. And since she doesnt think anything she does is wrong; she just claims he abused her as opposed to thinking he really was just trying to help her. I really just think she had narcassist personally disorder.. I know people have something similar and they have qualities that Frankie possesses.

Don't be afraid to fall in love. It's the only thing that matters in life

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You know, I think you're right. After I had watched the movie, I thought about the matter some more and finally concluded....no, we should NOT feel sorry for Francesca. Whatever had happened to her as a child (and, as you pointed out, there's no way to know for sure), Danny was definitely trying to help her and she could have changed. She just found it easier to surrender to her vices.

Still, even if we can't feel sorry for her, I think it's possible to say "I'm sorry that happened." I think it was pretty clear that - for whatever reason - Frankie didn't like herself. She probably wasn't ever really happy, even when she was leeching off those rich men. And when she says to the hotel clerk toward the end: "Well, you've got yourself [a whore] now," there's nothing proud or defiant in her voice; she just sounds really, really discouraged.

So, yes, I think she got what she deserved. But it didn't have to be that way: she brought it on herself. To quote another 1997 movie (which wasn't all that good, but it did provide us with a great line): "Using feminine wiles to get what you want. Trading on your looks. Read a book, sister: that passive-aggressive number went out a long time ago."

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The last scene of the movie when she was found by the police just showed to me that she was not mentally stable.

Don't be afraid to fall in love. It's the only thing that matters in life

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she's always drinking water. seems like she's really dehydrated.



A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.

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Briefly speaking, maybe its up to audience to decide, no?

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