Frances Ha (2012) – Noah Baumbach

“As individuals, we find that our development depends upon the people whom we meet in the course of our lives.  (These people include the authors whose books we read, and characters in works of fiction and history.)  The benefit of these meetings is due as much to the differences as to the resemblances; to the conflict, as well as the sympathy, between persons.”
– T.S. Eliot
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This film is still growing on me.  But I certainly cannot understand all the comparisons that have been made between it and HBO’s Girls.  Beyond mere trivial similarities – both have single women protagonists struggling through the transition into responsible adult life – the two are entirely unlike each other in atmosphere, aesthetic and philosophical themes, acting ability, script writing and … heart.  You might as well compare the “similarities” between Portlandia and Another Year(both are concerning middle-class lives within distinctive suburban communities) or between Entourage and Rumble Fish (both are about groups of single young men learning or not learning to grow up).

HBO’s Girls is too clever for it’s own good.  It’s typically cynical, disillusioned, narcissistic, self-focused, self-consciously ironic and what is now called “meta.”  Frances Ha is joyful, thoughtful, at times objectively disinterested and interested in real ideas rather than in being relevant or millennially clever.

There is a seriousness that is lacking in the lighter fare of Girls, Portlandia or Entourage, but the inclusion of this missing seriousness would not necessarily prevent any of those shows from still being comic.  If anything, the earnestness of Frances Ha just proved this.  Instead, it is as if the makers of those shows just don’t care.  There are important cultural ideas obvious in their subject matter that are begging to be really explored, but they don’t seem to want to explore them.  By contrast, the makers of Frances Ha do.

Far too many moments in this film hit close to home.  I have friends who are the equivalents for many of the film’s characters.  And, even more unsettling, there is more than one character in Frances Ha who is dangerously similar to that person I have been or could still be.  I have seen, experienced or gone through too many of the sorts of things that happen in this film.  It is really terribly funny.  But I don’t know if I’ve seen a film that has produced as many laughs of, shall we say, self-recognition, as this one.

The film is critiquing my generation and that is one of the reasons why it is so good.  We need to be critiqued.  We are not honestly and compassionately critiqued like this enough.  This is also what makes so many of the film’s moments enjoyable in the sense of ‘uncomfortably funny.’

Greta Gerwig, who stars as Frances, has also recently given a splendid and comic performance in Whit Stillman’s Damsels in Distress.  Comparing that film with this one allows us to consider what Frances Ha does at another angle.  Much of the social interaction that you would find in the films of Stillman is of that sort that one could happily desire.  In contrast, much of the social interaction in Frances Ha is of that less desired sort that one experiences instead.

How many things does Frances Ha get right?

Let’s count the ways:

– That wandering sense of rootlessness, years after college, when you see others of your friends who appear to have their acts together, when you still haven’t found satisfying answers for either love or for a career …

– That self-centered focus that revolves around my own search for the things I want to do with myown life that, intentionally or unintentionally, ignores anything greater or more important …

– That 21st century separation of sex from romance where sex is a matter of convenience between mere agreeable playmates …

– That dessication of the relatively new 20th Century idea of “dating” into the 21st Century version of just “hanging out” in which many young men will never actually say they are interested in specific young women …

– That trivializing of gender differences to the point of absolute casualness where men and women “hanging out” in each others’ bedrooms (or even lying in each other’s beds) means, well, it supposedly means nothing, nothing at all …

– Those instances of isolated conversation, becoming more and more frequent, where one individual can suddenly talk about himself or herself with absolutely no awareness of how all those listening are reacting or feeling …

– That constant and repeated separation from, and loss of, very dear friends …

– That dawning realization that one’s own rootlessness and lack of focus does not slow the passing of years, or even the passing of decades …

– Those ways in which life can be so easily lost over time without the conscious willing act to really do something worth doing …

We could keep going with this list for pages.  Frances Ha hits so many right notes in its look at today’s 20-30 somethings, that it could be discussed and analyzed for hours.  And yet, Baumbach’s direction and Gerwig’s acting seem to do so much of this effortlessly.  Their outlook on the world and their attitude is somehow accurate, so that they get so many other little details right consequently as apparent and necessary corollaries.

Finally, and best of all, this isn’t just another cynical and ironical film for millennials.  With all the modern problems and cultural influences on Frances, she is still not to be disregarded and the story does not cheapen her.  Her hopes and aspirations, her willingness to see the good and potential of those around her, her obvious and joyous energy, her capability to love that is still looking for a proper outlet … these parts of who she is are potent.  Greta Gerwig can be commended for her ability to portray these traits often with great subtlety, sometimes with no more than a single sideways glance.  The viewer cannot help but get the sense that, with some spiritual direction, Frances can really grow into the woman that she is meant to be.  The fact that she isn’t quite there yet is grounds for both tragedy and comedy in the film.  The fact that the film makes the viewer believe she will get there is grounds for believing that we ourselves can do the same.

This growth of human character may never be complete or final.  It may never have a complete ending, but Frances Ha convinces you that it is still fundamentally important and worth striving towards.  You will not be satisfied by the ending, but then, so many cinematic “satisfying” endings come too cheaply.

Earlier, I used the phrase objectively disinterested to describe this film.  I did so because there are many moments where Baumbach simply shows us personal mistakes, misinterpretations and social gaffes without any casting judgment.  The story does not lead the viewer, in any explicit sense, so as to teach how the characters in the story are right or wrong.  Instead, it looks at how the social interactions in the life of one young woman progress.  If the viewer decides that something is wrong with Frances, the film leaves it to the viewer to think such a conclusion through.  By showing us the world in this light, we are able to see our own lives in a way we may not have considered before.   I would argue that any conclusions made by the honest viewer, as to what is wrong with the lives of these characters, cannot be made while ignoring personal application.

Millennials are regularly criticized these days for wholly submerging themselves into their own age and culture.  One of the main themes of this film involves Frances constantly finding herself up against the expectations of the crowd around her – against the expectations of the social circles and society in which she finds herself.  She doesn’t seem to fit in.  She doesn’t seem to communicate what she wants well, perhaps because she has not even decided precisely what it is that she wants, or even what it is that is worth wanting.

Yet it is too easy to criticize or even to despise those of our fellows who appear to be living rootless, meaningless or self-centered lives.  As Bernard Iddings Bell once wrote, “He who to any considerable extent has begun to escape the deteriorating pressures of crowd culture must exhibit great and sincere compassion.  Otherwise he will find himself looking with a wicked distaste upon his less fortunate brethren.”

It is too easy to be uncharitable at heart towards those who live as though nothing were more important than their own personal concerns.  This is why, when a film comes along that encourages one to be charitable at heart towards others, it is of great value to all of us.  In another sense, one can find the experience of seeing this film humbling.  How often have we made many of the same mistakes and how often have we been just as unaware or awkward as Frances?  The common young adult today shares many of the same faults and foibles as the characters in Frances Ha.

Bell also wrote, asking what is “wrong with the common person” of today:  “He is not wicked above other men.  The trouble with him is twofold.  First, he has not learned to see life in all its possible richness.  Secondly, he has lost contact with that which is greater than himself …”  Of course, there are many different ways of framing the same problem.  But we can appreciate how this film frames the problem.  There is a richness to be seen that is too often not seen.  There are things greater and beyond the personal concerns of our own individual searches for romances and careers.

Meeting someone like Frances, in person or in film, and countless other young adults in circumstances just like hers, can affect how we think and can develop our outlook towards the social world in which we live.  In this film, her outlook and thinking grows and changes.  So can ours.  By the film’s end, she still has far to go.  So do we.