Noah Baumbach’s moviesare idolized by the pretentious hipster types, the film and graphic design students that have moved on from their initial infatuation with Wes Anderson in an attempt to deviate from mainstream film. If they’re sticking with upper-class, white, American malaise, these people eventually land at Baumbach, the cooler, more intellectually liberated younger brother. These are the people that up-sticks from their parent’s five-bed house in middle-class suburbia, and descend on Brooklyn or London’s East End. They move into converted warehouses, with their exposed-brick walls, distressed Moroccan rugs, and their frameless beds, with the mattress resting on an assembly of recycled wooden pallets. If a piece of furniture or item of clothing doesn’t have “exposed,” “distressed,” or “recycled” as a qualifier, then they’re not interested. These are the self-proclaimed artists of this world.
In Baumbach’sFrances Ha, flatmates Benji (Michael Zegen) and Lev (Adam Driver) are the film’s tokens of those mentioned above. As Sophie (Mickey Sumner) exclaims to Frances, “the only people that can afford to be artists in New York are rich.” Sounds about right. Making paintings that no gallery will exhibit, writing novels that no one reads, designing clothes that no one wears… the lives of Mommy and Daddy-funded artistry tend to follow the same predictable formula. Yet, unlike these people,Frances Ha(the film that truly propelledGreta Gerwig’s nameinto the stratosphere) is comically self-aware and speaks to the 20-somethings about the quarter-life crises.
As the film,co-written by Gerwigand her partner Baumbach, turns 10 this year, let’s take a look back at how the film confronts the premature battle with existentialism and Gerwig’s exquisitely fanciful performance…
What Is Frances Ha About?
Captured in this monochromatic nostalgia,Frances Hadetails Frances Halliday’s whimsical existence as a 27-year-old dancer in New York. Living with best-friend Sophie (Sumner), the pair are like a “lesbian couple without the sex,” yet when Frances goes through a variety of life’s grievances, and hops from home-to-home, and job to job, she is forced to confront issues with her own ontology, albeit seemingly light-heartedly.
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Gerwig’s Demonstration of a Woman in Crisis
Gerwig’s depiction of Frances is such a likable and playful exhibition of her writing and acting talents. Frances is a love letter to those who don’t necessarily grab the bull by the horns in day-to-day life; she floats, glides, and waltzes through her petrifying reality, without a job, home, partner, child, or major responsibility, rapidly approaching that socially constructed deadline of 30 for having one’s sh*t together.
As those around her move past their aimless 20s and emigrate to other corners of the globe in the name of job security, Frances is still mulling over the blueprint of her life. After her burgeoning desire to make a success of her dancing and choreographic mind is stifled by the revelation she is surplus to requirements for her dance company’s show, Frances heads to Paris on a whim, pours wine at her old college, and laments her economic struggles. Greta Gerwig brings an authentic warmth to the role, commanding the screen with an all-absorbing performance while simultaneously maintaining this effortless charm as a nonchalant, drifting Bohemian.
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The argument thatFrances Hais simply much ado about not very much could feasibly be entertained, however, this is a movie that addresses a real issue in an effervescently breezy manner – a regular Baumbach tactic. This is a story of a young woman thrust into the 100-mile-an-hourworld of New York Citywith relatively limited “real world” experience. Tainted by a refreshing naivety, she understandably struggles to adapt. A classic case of sink or swim, except in Frances’ instance, she does neither and merely bobs along with the tide.
Frances Ha Confronts Real-World Issues
In thetoxic social media agein which we find ourselves, where ostentatious displays of wealth are plastered all over Instagram, Twitter, and the like, and where the man-made conception of the “influencer” brags about their affluence and progress in business and pleasure,Frances Haoffers an increasingly important lesson. We are surrounded by plasticity, and false representation, and as such, there’s a bloated, unrealistic, and often unattainable societal expectation that we must settle down and achieve all our lifetime achievements in the allotted time between 20 and 30.
Frances Haexemplifies the idea that progress and development aren’t always linear. Frances locates the beauty in the journey and the absurdity that our age is indicative of where society believes we should be with our lives. Frances is automatically empowered by her congenial outlook on life, and thus, she navigates the tricky situation with such light-hearted grace and this natural air of optimism. Proving emphatically that life should be what you make of it, and that no one should dictate how you live it.
