I went to see the movie Frances Ha tonight. Frances Ha's storyline centers around the title character (played by Greta Gerwig, who also co-wrote the screenplay). Frances is struggling through life - an apprentice at a dance company, struggling to make ends meet financially, and breaks up with her boyfriend at the start of the movie. The one thing she has going for her is her amazing friendship with her roommate, Sophie (played by Mickey Sumner), however Sophie finds an amazing new apartment (which comes with a new roommate) and moves out on Frances. The rest of the movie centers around Frances relationships with various people - those she works with/for, her roommates.
I really wanted to like this movie. The trailer made the movie look like it was centered around the friendship between these two women, when in actuality Sophie is a very central part of Frances life and struggles but has very little screen time. This is a movie that is completely driven by the main character, which would not be inherently bad if you like the main character. Unfortunately, Frances is a character that would have been interesting as a supporting character - someone who came on to the camera now and then, did something odd or silly, and left again - but as the lead she was odd at best, and often she just wore on my nerves to the point where I wanted the scene to end so she would at least temporarily go away. She did things that were so ridiculous that I found myself wondering several times if she was mentally challenged. She reminded me of Charlize Theron's character on Arrested Development, however while Rita is cute and charming, Frances is tiresome.
The character of Frances is not the only problem with this movie. The rest of the characters did not seem well fleshed out. For much of this movie I felt like I had been invited to a dinner party where I only knew one person there (Frances) and was never fully introduced to anyone else at the party. While that is how things happen in real life, it made it unpleasant as a movie-watcher.
The one character I did enjoy was her temporary roommate, Benji (played by Michael Zegen). While I did have a problem with the fact that there was really no buildup to their friendship, their friendship was cute and showcased nicely the hole he was filling in Frances life after Sophie moves out. It momentarily made me miss having roommates, especially ones who are also your good friend.
Plot-wise this is a slow, character-driven piece. If I had liked the characters more I think it would have raised the quality of the movie tremendously. The one problem I had with the plot was the bizarre relationship between the two main characters. They had all of the trappings of a romance without the actual romance. While I can believe that two people can have an intensely close relationship without it stepping beyond the bonds of friendship, this relationship stepped over that line numerous times.
In short, if there characters had been more appealing I think this easily could have been a 4 star movie, however the lack of appeal of the title character, and the lack of character development for the supporting characters made it a tedious 86 minutes that I would not recommend.
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