I tried to review Frances Ha
“We’re the same person, with different hair.”
Frances, the title character of Frances Ha, says these words about her roommate slash best friend Sophie, repeatedly during the course of the movie. It becomes relatively clear that Sophie, despite loving Frances, isn’t as implicated in this relationship. The film follows the journey of Frances, an apprentice dancer in New York, as she seeks meaning of her own life while watching others around her achieve their dreams.
I will try to review the movie here but it is a particularly arduous task for someone who does not even bother leaving a one-line review on letterboxd. Perhaps because all I read and listen to these days is philosophers and academics speaking about modern psychosocial culture and its political implications, I can’t help but perceive this film with that lens.
Fifty seconds into the movie, I had to google if it was actually in black and white or if my go-to piracy site was playing tricks on me. However, one would not be blamed for thinking if it was actually set in the 1960s at some points during the film.
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Frances, played by the incredible Greta Gerwig, is 27, and an aspiring dancer. She is an apprentice at a dance company with optimistic dreams of converting the gig into a full time position. Frances shares a flat with her best friend Sophie. They read aloud to each other, smoke together, share the same bed, cuddle on the subway and their relationship, platonic as it is, seems like the one every girl desires. Frances repeatedly says during the course of the film,“We are the same person with different hair,” signifying just how similar she thinks the women are. Gerwig’s character assumes they will both continue living together and extend when their current lease expires but was met with a shock rejection by Sophie, who, in turn, is looking to move to a wealthier neighborhood with another friend. The room-mates’ separation marks a flailing moment in their relationship, one Frances was a part of more than Sophie.
But this isn’t a movie just about the tumultuous friendship between two adults, navigating life in New York City. It explores how Frances deals with a failing career, while being deep in credit card debt, and while all of her fair-weather friends are seemingly winning the rat race. She moves in with two recent acquaintances, Benji and Levi, after Sophie leaves the apartment. Frances and Sophie, don’t see each other often anymore and the former looks lost. She seeks meaning of her life wherever she can find it. But nothing is going according to plan, as the dance company lets her go, leaving her unable to pay rent.
The despairing protagonist fails over and over with her career going downhill at every moment. She works multiple jobs to make ends meet. Frances learns about Sophie’s impending departure to Japan at a dinner with friends of her another friend. Her best friend is moving to the other side of the world, with her boyfriend Patch, who is employed at Goldman Sachs and has been promoted. Frances is visibly failing when everyone else associated with her life is skyrocketing to the top. One is supposed to feel sorry for Frances as she seems desperate to fix one end of her life but is just too unfortunate to progress in most cases. Just like the lonesome weekend trip to Paris and when she finally hears back from a friend living in the French capital, during the cab ride home from JFK. Frances repeatedly and desperately tries to get a hold of her former college friend living in the country, only to get an answer after she had left Paris. In German, Frances would be referred to as ‘Pechvogel’, one bereft of any good luck.
Sharing a flat with Benji and Levi becomes too expensive, so, she finds accommodation working as the summer resident assistant at her alma matter. Frances finds her work demeaning and tries to hide the night she spots Sophie and her boyfriend Patch attending one of the gatherings. Upon learning that her best friend is now engaged, she jumps out, shocked. Sophie drinks and spends the night in Frances’ bed. She admits that she isn’t satisfied or happy with her life in Japan and promises to break up with him and move back to New York. Frances’ estranged friend is remarkably delighted while telling her about her miscarriage. But come morning, she exits without saying goodbye and a drunken Frances watches Sophie drive away with Patch. Frances seems to always fall for the promise of a better future, a better friendship, a better career and a better meaning of life. But to no avail.
Frances Halliday, at that point looks like a mockery of the American Dream. But a future version of Frances finds stability. She does not achieve her dream of becoming a full-time dancer, but instead works behind the stage, choreographing a well-received performance. She moves into a flat, room mate free and looks to have figured it all out. All is well if the girl (almost) gets what she wants.
For me, it is easy to associate Frances’ failure as an artist living in New York to the dog-fight under late-stage capitalism. Frances is shocked to discover that her friends are not as poor as she is, just like your liberal friends who are renting out properties, travelling every other weekend and consuming way beyond their needs, while posting Zohran Mamdani at any given moment. They don’t even live in New York! As a woman in her early twenties who has taken a massive risk to chase her dream, it is hard to not feel scared for my potential future after watching this film. To secern that not matter how much you want it, sometimes you do not get what you want. You have to make it because the home you left behind is just not you, even though you will always be comfortable and happy where you grew up. Frances found life back home familiar but unglamorous while visiting for Christmas. But I guess that’s what the movie wants its viewers to realise. Sometimes you don’t get what you want, no matter how much you want it and perhaps it will still all work out okay. As long as you aren’t a bitch to your best friend.
