MovieChat Forums > The Good Life (2007) Discussion > The character of Frances (spoilers)

The character of Frances (spoilers)


Was this character just a *beep* Why would she do that to him? Was she really crazy? Did she just want to get laid?

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Well, she is certainly unstable or probably crazy as well if you want to classify her that way. But it's not entirely her fault. Sure it was sad what she did to Jason (the main character), but maybe that's what she had to do to feel better, even if it's just temporary to make her feel justified.

I don't dislike her character at all, I actually pity her and feel compassionate for her, because her character has gone through some tough times since a child. Come on now, since at a very young age, taken through a rough time touring and chowing down pills that was given to her by her mother and who also has a gay father with dirty secrets. She also ran into her husband in bed with another guy, which is another pretty bad blow for her that she has two homosexuals in her life to deal with. All that agony, despression and and being suicidal, put into the clinic which probably would result in more uneasy "treatments" such as more pills and even electrotherapy. Geeze, I'd kill myself.

She runs off having affairs with men all the time may make her feel somewhat better or something, that conclusion is up for us to decide. And whether she was honest with Jason, that's also not clear in the film. So she may be crazy if you want to call her that. However though, I think that she has opened Jason. She has entered his life and changed it for the better. Because of her character, Jason has felt something different and something rather nice, especially something worth living for where he explains more in detail in the end of the movie.

What I'm wondering more about, is that Bill Paxton character. who the hell was that guy? We don't even know much about that character throughout the movie. His appearance was pretty random and how did he know so much about Frances? I really like Bill Paxton as an actor, but I thought his character was a total creep when he offered to give Jason a ride. I thought he was gonna call his buddy on the phone and gang rape the kid at his place. At least that's what I was expecting....

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None of that stuff happened to her. That all happened to Judy Garland. She was lying about it happening to her, whether because she's crazy or what we don't really know. I guess Bill Paxton's character was just some random gay guy they needed to explain that to us. All that stuff he says to Jason at the end is about Judy Garland, not Frances.

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oh snap, thanks for clearing that up with me. I didn't know that. that just opened a lot of other thoughts and theories for me now.

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She was an interesting character. I found myself looking at this forum to see what others thought about her.

Personally the way i see it, she was just a troubled person in a family that she obviously did not connect well with. I think the important scene's to look at are when they are in the car and stop outside her home. She pretends she doesn't know them. Clearly the family inside is having a good time decorating the x-mas tree and shes not there. In the same scene was the comment about her hating football. Another scene was when she calls him from the x-mas party, again..clearly not connecting with the family. Then finally when the main character see's her on TV. They pan across to shots of the son and mother, both with large smiles on there faces obviously happy for the father/husband.. then they show Frances who looks particularly indifferent about the situation.

I guess it was just showing one way a person deals with the problems they have in life. She sorta made up a life for herself (with Judy Garland as a model) to live. Why she just wasn't straight forward about her possibly troubled family life is anyone's guess..but everyone handles things differently. At the risk of maybe over analyzing it, i think you are shown at least 2 other ways people deal with there problems differently in this movie. The main character just 'takes it' and moves on and the character played by Chris Klein (druggie ex-football star) is still living out his football dreams (like a more screwed up Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite! :) ).

That's just how i interpreted it.

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^I found her character interesting, too. And I, too, looked at the forums too see what others thought.

Well, I think she's a compulsive liar. And that most probably had something to do with her always feeling out of place. I liked the jjeng's interpretation. My thoughts were like that.

I liked the movie. It's one of those that really make you think. I love it.

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Honestly, I think her character was bored with her life and looked up to Judy Garland and decided to mesh aspects of Judy's life into her own. I wouldn't go as far as saying she was crazy but perhaps somewhat delusional. And as much as I disapprove of her deceit of the main character, she did encourage him to leave and live his life so she isn't entirely terrible.

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She may have been bored with her life, but she was still a crazy byatch.

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the way I kept looking at it was:

she used lies to get away from her life that she hated. wives, husbands and children are forced to take on the roles given to them when their 'other half' is in a position of power or fame. think about jenna bush, when GW first took office she was a wild child at UT. although the times I would see her out and about it wasn't as bad as the media tried to make it out. as time went by Jenna took on a new more professional role.

I looked at Francis as hating having to be the daughter of the Town Savior. College football more than any other sport takes on a whole different feeling in the mid-west/south-west/south-east. you are a god if you win and a dog if you are losing.

she lied to people to be someone else.

she kept lying to Jason and then would feel bad about it so she would come clean. but her biggest lie was her last, she was leaving and it was ok because it wasn't too terrible as long as she didn't run into him again... or know the story of Judy Garland...

Her lies were an attempt to make herself fell better but even she saw that some of her lies were almost haunting Jason. that,to me, is why she came clean on some of them when they would have heart-to-hearts.

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For a moment, before they revealed her at the football game, I thought it was supposed to be that she was the ghost of Garland. Some of the themes in the film delve into ghosts from the past. The whole scene with Paxton in the apartment seemed to set that up.

Then she's just a liar. It worked, it was just...it seemed like the eerie nature of the film lent itself to the ghost character, rather than just another person who was there to screw him up.



**Skin that Smokewagon and see what happens!** Tombstone

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I didn't catch whether or not the sports announcer said her name when she was shown on TV, but I do think it's interesting that her name was Francis. Judy Garland was born Francis Gumm. Coincidence? I think not.

"She's, like, a biscuit older than me..."

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" Garland was born Francis Gumm."
Nice catch !

this movie was interesting, sad, (somewhat) hopeful, and sweet all at the same time...

I want to watch it again and try to figure out Frances' story for myself.

*
*
Talking monkey, yeah, yeah. Came here from the future, ugly sucker, only says "ficus"

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Love your signature, normadamous. From a great movie so few have ever seen.


"She's, like, a biscuit older than me..."

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I mean what it made it worse was she kept saying i lied, i'll never lie again, and everything was a lie. something was off about her from the get go though

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Obviously her life centered around football and it appeared as though Jason was the only person who wasn't crazy about the team. Maybe this was her wanting to connect to another person. And on an empathetic and sympathetic level, the only way to truly connect with this dude was to make up a story. Because if she told him the truth, he'd write her off. It also didn't hurt that she probably really had some sort of mental thing going on.
I've dated someone like her character, and it's not that they get off on manipulation, it's just that the manipulation is a means to approval or a sense of connection. That will always keep her down, Klein's character, his gas station buddy, and everyone else down. They all had something "not real" holding them in place and not fulfilling their potential, like an excuse. The story is probably about Jason realizing that he's the only one keeping himself back. Thus, the ending is a happy one.

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Must have been terrible for him being used for sex like that. Seriously, who cares about a chick's "story"?

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