Frances Ha
I’m blown away. Where was this movie when I was that age?
Then again, if this were 1979 “Frances Ha” would be famous. It was expensive to make a film, going was the national pastime, we retreated from the theatre to bars to discuss them and we still believed art, if it couldn’t change our lives, could make them worth living.
I didn’t expect much. I love Greta Gerwig, but I expected something a cut above mumblecore. And the problem today is we have too much data. You can triangulate everything. Check out the ratings on not only Rotten Tomatoes but IMDB and Netflix and if something gets less than four stars it can’t really be that good, can it?
With life moving so fast we’ve got no time for not only sergeants, but anything less than perfection. Which leaves us not going to the theatre at all, because what was the last perfect movie? “Pulp Fiction.”
But although “Pulp Fiction” was dazzling, it was not fully comprehensible. And I get “Frances Ha,” only too well.
We’ve got expectations. Not only ourselves, but our parents and our peers. We graduated from elite institutions and we’re gonna set the world on fire, our lives are going to mean something, but what exactly is the path?
Forget the bank. That’s playing it safe. But personal fulfillment, achieving your artistic goal, that’s nearly impossible.
But in California everybody’s upbeat and sunny. They’re winners. And if they don’t emerge victorious, they retreat home or move to where the real estate matches their bank account.
But on the east coast… You don’t want to be a failure. And living is expensive. And everybody’s got attitude. And everybody’s in your business. What do you do?
Lie. That’s something people do everywhere. If you want to get ahead you have to earn your decoder ring, which takes about two years, to decipher who is real and who is not.
Or have a rich father. This is another skill, the ability to realize when income doesn’t match the lifestyle that means there’s a rich relative somewhere.
Or sell out and give up. Join the bank. Get married.
Because life is really scary and everything you counted on is resting on quicksand.
You think you know your best friend, you think you can depend upon them, but then they make choices you don’t believe they believe in and in order to survive you’ve got to make all new friends, and that’s hard.
Your parents don’t want to send a check.
And you’re so lonely! You want someone to talk to, someone to understand you. You want love, you see couples everywhere, but you’re in a relationship free zone.
And then you find out your dream isn’t gonna come true. What do you do then?
Hopefully you get practical. Realize that waiting for Mr. or Ms. Right is wrong and life is about settling, and if you’ve got regular sex and companionship and a roof over your head and kids who look up to you you’ve won at the game of life, even if it bears no resemblance to what you thought it was when you graduated from college.
And I don’t want to be in my twenties again, with more questions than answers, but I understand everything in this movie that most people can’t watch because if they slowed down that much and thought about things they’d be on suicide watch.
That’s what America has turned into, a bunch of somnambulant rats who believe if they just get on reality TV or create an app their lives will be complete.
But whether this is true or not, few people can achieve these goals, what about the rest of us?
It’s in black and white, no one’s beautiful and so much of it is depressing.
Frances is awkward. Watching her you wince.
But if you’re honest with yourself you get it.
That’s what art used to be, before it became about box office and climbing the financial totem pole. Yup, if I make a popcorn flick that plays around the world maybe I can fly private. And then there are those pooh-poohing ambition, because they’re too scared to look in the mirror and wonder who they could have become, if they only tried.
So I’m not recommending “Frances Ha.” Because you don’t want to watch it. You want to believe if you’re smart enough and work hard enough and want it enough you’ll get it.
But it don’t really happen that way at all.
