Frances Ha is an indie American black comedy-drama directed by Noah Baumbach. Like Baumbach’s other movies which respectfully portray human failures with a bit of humor, Frances Ha too is a charmingly fresh movie about a 21st-century woman hustling on the streets of New York, vulnerable to failures and owning her idiosyncrasies. Thus, making her more individualistic and relatable or ‘undateable’ as often called by her co- flatmate Benji.
Quarter-life crisis
The protagonist Frances is in her late 20s. She is still figuring out her life and trying out for the position of the main dancer in a modern dance school. She has been rejected several times but is unwilling to give up on her passion. But as she is running out of money to fulfill her dreams she is slapped with the reality of practicality. She is offered the desk job at the same place but rejects it.
Thus, life hits hard at Frances as Sophie (her best friend) and everyone around her too moves on with their life. Frances only struggles after leaving her job as she shifts to a multi-shared apartment, visits her home on Christmas, and makes a sudden visit to Paris when she is out of money. Ultimately, she hits the rock bottom only to accept her reality, compromise with her passions and move on with her life.
Baumbach makes a subtle commentary on uncertainty which compliments his realistic narrative of a relatable individual. The uncertainty of monetizing your passions and making them a reality is higher. After a point of time in life between stability and uncertainty, wants and needs choosing stability and needs is a sign of maturity and growing up.
Sisterhood in Frances Ha
Frances Ha embraces the peculiarity and struggles of female friendships. Sophie is Frances’s roommate as well as her best friend. She prioritizes Sophie over her boyfriend. Thus, a female dynamic which is rarely shown in commercial cinema. But, unlike Frances Sophie chooses her fiancé over their friendship and moves out of the environment.
This disrupts her comfortable lifestyle as she had become emotionally dependent on Sophie. Frances is developed as a complex three-dimensional female working woman in her late 20s which turns out to be relatable to a vast number of the female population. Due to her level of unique intellectuality, immaturity, and idiosyncratic personality she struggles to find the same kind of compatibility with her other acquaintances, romantic interests, and male peers that she does with Sophie.
There is a sense of ownership, jealousy, and undivided attention she commands from Sophie when she meets her fiancé. Thus, female friendships often tend to fade away into blurred lines when life convictions, relationships, and priorities come in between. As Frances says that you can have an instant connection with a person across a room which could be platonic too and that can be even your best friend. She and Sophie share a genuine happy glance at each other at the beginning and end of the film.
In the beginning, when they are sitting across each other in their apartment windows with their heads out and candidly celebrating their mundane lives, and in the end when Frances achieves a position of a trainer, she celebrates it by glancing at Sophie across a room full of people with a smile that she has made it (surpassed the adulting phase) and she wants Sophie to be the first one to know that.
Women Child Trope
In her late 20s, Frances is still struggling with her career and work-life balance. She is clumsy and impractical. Her impulsiveness directs her sudden decisions and plans in life like leaving her job and heading on a solo trip to Paris. Benji (one of her co flatmates) addresses Frances as undateable due to her lack of control over life.
He secretly likes her as it is revealed later but gradually moves on with someone else as Frances stays busy handling her chaotic world. Frances’s dilemma is similar to that of Julie in The worst person in the world (2021), Lelaina in Reality Bites (1994), Aura in Tiny Furniture (2010), and Kit in Unicorn store (2017). Like all of them, she too struggles to grow up and make mature decisions. The classic zany energy of women child trope from Broad City (TV series) meets the indie realism of Baumbach and Gerwig’s cinema.
Realism
The realism in Baumbach and Gerwig’s screenplay navigates the organic humor in Frances’s clumsiness and awkward situations. As the film starts, we learn about Frances’s incompetency as a dancer and her delusional conviction to make it someday. It is quite debatable that Frances could be a somewhat example of Dunning Krugger’s effect as at the age of 27 she is unaware of her incompetency as a contemporary dancer and is extremely stubborn to think way past it. But, she comes across as quite an intellectual and deep thinker to not self-introspect her life decisions.
Unlike a fantasy rom-com, Frances faces the wrath of her careless decisions. Her impulsive lifestyle choices reflect her absurdist ideology. Noah Baumbach’s Frances is one of the most relatable female characters ever created as millions of working women around the world are struggling with the same kind of adulting problems. Greta Gerwig’s authentic charm and raw improvisation help to make Frances a three-dimensional millennial woman who seems to be one of us. In the end, she does not achieve exactly what she wants but a different life journey waits for her, and she makes peace with it and moves on with her life. Her character development and growth are signs of maturity.
The Cinematography of Frances Ha movie
Noah Baumbach gives a poetic ode to the bustling streets of New York. The black and white monochromatic canvas is inspired by French new wave cinema which allowed him to take a lot of artistic liberties. The ironic juxtaposition of Francis’s initial happy chaotic world and her dooming world in the second half after Sophie’s departure complements the black and white cinematics. The monochrome adds pathos to the melancholic loneliness of Frances when she aimlessly wanders around the forest and the acceptance of solitude and self-dependence when she finally moves into a small apartment at the end.
Each scene in Frances Ha depicting the romanticization of mundane life is well choreographed to add skepticism around each character’s intention. It is shot by Sam Levy from a normal Canon 5D camera. Thus, the optimum utilization of all the present resources is a key characteristic and celebration of independent cinema.
Absolutely love Noah’s movies, I am sure Marriage Story is going to blow your minds as well.
