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If you could sum up Frances Ha in a few words...

posted 10 years ago by Fornicus
8 replies | jump to latest

How would you?

Just saw this last night on Netflix. Heard a ton of praise for this, so I thought why not? It's truly an overrated film. If I could sum this film up in a few words... Frances Ha is about Frances, a socially retarded lesbian, struggling with her love for her best friend.

That's really all the film is about. It's one sequence after another of Frances being a complete social moron. She means well, and she's quirky, but overall she is very... special. Therefore we should love her. She's in love with her best friend, but her best friend isn't quite sure if she feels the same way... that's the movie in a nutshell.

Everything else is sort of there for the sake of being there. It didn't feel like there was a strong narrative present.

EDIT: I should note that I didn't hate the film, just quite underwhelmed by it.

[–] shelemm 10 years ago

Why "in a few words?" Talk about retarded!

Read my other posts and then get back to me.

[–] Fornicus 10 years ago

I'll pass, but thanks.

[–] princesstinymeat 10 years ago

Affected and derivative, but it looks gorgeous, and Adam Driver and Grace Gummer are awesome.

[–] ar804396 10 years ago

I would sum the film up as "Female Napoleon Dynamite."
Like with Dynamite, the filmmakers clearly spent all of their time creating a quirky, socially inept indie film character who is simply too cartoonish to exist in real life... and spent no time on a worthy plot or story. But at least Dynamite has some laughs.

I assume we're supposed to love her because we never get to know ANY other character well enough to form an opinion about them, including her best friend.

[–] starr_ct 10 years ago

Hipster *beep*

[–] dist_roy 9 years ago

[–] bigdaddyboxmeal 9 years ago

When I saw the critical reception to it from the last year or so I was intrigued so sat down to watch it expecting something special. In truth, I found it to be one of the more 'beige' non-descript films I've seen for a good while.

I certainly wouldn't call it a bad film. It's fairly competently directed/acted/written, but I couldn't connect with any of the characters. Most of them were unlikeable (and not even in an interesting way) and I found them tough to connect to on any level. And this wasn't even because of their privilege either. There was something just so blase about the whole film that it made me wonder why it's ratings are so high.

The narrative itself is decent. Young woman having fun in NY starts to realise her life is evaporating. Her best friend is moving out and has found a partner, her own career ambition seems to be faltering, she's struggling to afford rent to keep up her current lifestyle etc so she finds herself lost. Through the film and her own struggles she eventually finds a way (there's a bit more to it than that but at a base level its Frances journey through this).

This is all fair and it kept me involved but there wasn't anything to root for. Frances was a little bit kooky but I don't think the film gave me enough to care about. That was my issue with it. All in all...half-decent at best.

[–] MoviemanCin 8 years ago

She moved around a lot. An interesting character piece, but she was such a bull shi**er!

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.