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Movie of the Month: Frances Ha (2012) (Patreon)

Published:
2024-09-11 17:53:12
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Someone I love showed me this movie in high school, and I would never have known to imagine or ask for Lady Bird, Little Women and Barbie at that time. But I did know Greta Gerwig would be part of my life, and that the person who showed me it would be too.

& here we are.

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Story about being 27 and broke in New York. Story about friendship and connection and profession. Story about people in situations.

( )

......>.<......

Three prompts if you want them:

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There are a million micro-social interactions in this movie, pick one and love it.-=-=-=-Do you think Frances changed over the course of the movie? When did it happen? What... happened?-=-=-=-Which bit made you feel highest? Which made you feel lowest?

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I've seen this one a bunch of times but i'm rewatching AGAIN tonight. You have all week (and month, really) to watch and get in there for DISCOURSE. See if it ENRICHES you.

++++

littol update:

I felt i stumbled through some of the questions in the last livestream, which is ok, i can only homerun 80% of the time, but to reform myself around this experience so as to make it more beautiful I've taken it as motivation to research those areas and correct them. Turns out your intense questions are good fuel ! Next livestream I will open with subjects raised last time that I've stayed inside of, and I'll have studied and prepped on them a bit better.

At least one cjthex.com essay on Buber/James/MacMurray will come of this, and hopefully there will be some iterative emergent skill in whatever these monthly livestreams will be. The routine is designed for growth instead of kick open the door perfection (like a video)

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(new vid is bouncing back n forth between me and Ben being edited)

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K FRANCES HAAAAAAAAAAA

Files

Frances Ha - Official Trailer I HD I IFC Films

Directed by: Noah Baumbach Starring: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Summer, Michael Esper, & Adam Driver Frances (Greta Gerwig) lives in New York, but she doesn't really have an apartment. Frances is an apprentice for a dance company, but she's not really a dancer. Frances has a best friend named Sophie, but they aren't really speaking anymore. Frances throws herself headlong into her dreams, even as their possible reality dwindles. Frances wants so much more than she has but lives her life with unaccountable joy and lightness. FRANCES HA is a modern comic fable that explores New York, friendship, class, ambition, failure, and redemption. Subscribe to IFC: http://youtube.com/user/IFCFilmsTube Connect with IFC Online IFC Films Official Site: http://www.ifcfilms.com Follow IFC Films on Twitter: http://twitter.com/IFCFilms Find IFC Films on Facebook: http://facebook.com/IFCFilmsOfficial Follow IFC Films on Instagram : http://instagram.com/ifcfilms

Comments

Spencer Dickson

So excited for the Buber essay. Really appreciate you fielding my question and looking forward to what else you have to say. I’ve been thinking on it a bit as well and interested to see if you’re formulations are at all similar to mine🫡🙏🙌

רועי שילה

I’ve had small reunions with friends I’ve lost touch with that felt more intimate and close than we ever were when we were actually close, so the scene in the dorm room where Francis and Sophie reunite stabbed me hard in the chest. Hearing all you’ve missed and not even being sad that you’ve missed it, instead being sad that you missing things is trivial now -is such a tiny in body feeling like a quick flutter of breath that only greta could do so much justice for. “I’ve always felt so competitive with you” …fuck I’ve had this exact conversation, I’ve told someone I felt like that and I’ve had them respond to me just like Francis . everything is so hard when you’re close to someone, you want to be them and you want them to be you it’s like this urge to morph into a singular blob, so you press hard onto each other like stones causing sparks to fly off bursting with light and energy. sometimes that energy turns into beautiful excitement and intimacy but sometimes it also turns into frustration,like a hole that can’t be filled. I hate that I’m not you!!! I hate that you’re not me!!! Why can’t we just be one!!! That is the kind of tension I feel between Francis and Sophie throughout the whole film, That is the competitiveness Sophie is talking about I think.. At first the line doesn’t make sense because Sophie is so obviously doing better in life than Frances the entire movie why would she feel bad about a competition that she’s obviously winning But Francis is winning at something much better - being us (Sophie+Francis) she’s so fucking good at getting Sophie to morph into their blob . and that is the the main thing that causes a rift between them - when both of them are given the choice to continue the competition or give up ,Francis being in the lead chooses to continue (with the price of her boyfriend leaving her) and Sophie who feels like she’s losing chooses to give up, which sucks for Francis because she’s so good at being them! She looses Sophie just like she looses her job as a dancer ,it’s this thing she’s so good at and that makes her feel so good and now it’s being taken away from her. when they’re in the bed together they get to be IT again -their blob- and it feels so right !! they talk about sad stuff but the entire scene is so optimistic because finally it’s just them again and we can get back to what’s important- being us. “I love you Francis” But morning comes and Sophie runs away again and we see Francis’s bare feet because Sophie asked her to take off her socks last night … god danm it she was so good at this. It’s here I think Francis finally gives up, and that is when she actually changes. she lets go of being the Francis Sophie blob and gives up on being a dancer full time and she builds a life, she does choreography, she takes the job she turned down, she gets her own apartment and she gets what she always wanted - the glance at Sophie at the party …they still have their own dimension. I feel very stupid trying to articulate how I feel about this movie but being bad at something is the first step to being good at it so there are my thoughts.. -Side notes- - street dance scene SO FUCKING GOOD OMGGG -when Francis talks about the choreography she made, she says she likes it when things seem like a mistake and it reminded me of the fluxus art movement which made my heart explode with excitement, fluxus is the best art movement ever and I invite anyone who’s reading this to research it further.. -in an interview greta talked how she was annoyed at movies and media in general that didn’t actually show the specific work or art that the main character was doing and that was a reason she wanted to show most of the choreography, and I remember being really happy that they actually showed it instead of just alluding to it being good like most movies do when it comes to art , so I was really happy I shared that opinion with her, I’m literally Greta gerwig. Anyways movie good yes yes perfect out of ten👌👌👌

alexinthevoid

I'm moving out to live on my own for the first time tomorrow so this felt a little like a horror movie. That being said, I still found that the movie shared a lot of my interests and experiences already, which was comforting. I was particularly compelled by how the tone and style of many scenes reflected the character Frances' search for r(R)omantic joy and quality in her everyday life. The way she joyously shouts things like "Ahoy sexy" and runs down the busy streets of nyc almost contains the same kind of romance people associate with "old timey" cinema, but the modern setting is incongruent. The most obvious elements of the movie's style is its black and white cinematography, and its orchestral score,. These both reinforce this mid-19th-century feeling of romantic glamour and nostalgia. I think by placing this in contrast with the protagonist's modern setting, the movie makes her own desire for quality feel like its working against those around her. That is where i think a lot of my empathy for Frances comes from. A scene that i love that i think most captures Frances' want is about half way through the movie when she's just ranting at this person about "laughing and shining" and "your person" and that "that's what I want, out of a relationship, or just life, or love". This sounds beautiful, and shes so real for it, and the nostalgic old timey romance score kicks in until it stops as she begins to shut herself off again; "I sound stoned, I'm not stoned, thanks for dinner." She instantly abandons the small bit of passion she was comfortable enough for a moment to share with a stranger. Towards the end of the movie, Frances learns to balance her personal goals with reality, still holding onto that feeling of quality in a realistically optimistic way. she gets the office job, but finds time to choreograph her own shows and fulfil her own passions. She still looks for the "shining" quality in those around her, after being reminded by Sophie's presence in the dorm room that such a quality does exist. The metaphysical barrier she put up in the scene i mentioned earlier is broken down, she talks about her love freely and proudly; "That's Sophie, she's my best friend." Beautiful! I will certainly have to watch this again.

Chandler Sterling

Truly what is there to say about this movie other than "the feminine urge to be a little silly or perhaps get a lil goofy?" This feels like one of those things you would watch with someone insufferable, and they would just spend the whole time saying that they could do it too. (OH REALLY?? THEN WHY HAVEN'T YOU HUH??? WHY ARE YOU DEPRIVING ME OF A GOOD MOVIE TO WATCH??) In reality, I don't think that anyone else could have written and executed Frances Ha besides Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig. If they did it would either be entirely different or worse. The "naturalistic" (in quotes because it's still stylistic and I feel like people don't always read natural in that way) dialog is a staple of Baumbach's movies, but there's a very specific timbre that Gerwig provides the words which helps them leap off the page. What I mean is: It's normal for people in a Baumbach flick to constantly interrupt each other, misunderstand what the other person is saying, and/or go on tangents that dead end a mile away from where we started, but it's not usual for me to be so drawn in while it's happening. Usually the tangents and misunderstandings are frustrating because you know what each character wants to say, but neither one can express it in universal terms. It calls attention to the fact that you probably can't tell the people you love just exactly what they mean to you at the drop of a dime either. We want our movies to do better, be better, and it is hard to watch someone fail to say the things we fail to say too. Frances didn't frustrate me. It's a stream of consciousness that isn't stumbling over itself because of a holding back, but more tripping over itself in the rush to get everything out in time. You can tell she reads a lot of books, there are so many ideas bouncing around her head that she is attempting to synthesize in real time. Speaking of, I really like the weird facts that Frances likes to repeat about her relationship with Sophie. They are like the same person with different hair. Sophie reads less books than her despite wanting to be a publisher. She gives the impression of a kid showing off a shiny trophy at show-and-tell. There is a lot of childlike wonder and joy that comes as a result of their relationship with each other, and I think the yearning that is felt throughout the middle of the movie is the growing realization that both of them have no idea how to be that person alone. It's the terrifying realization of your 20s that everyone is trying to figure out how to be an adult, and none of us really *want* to. And just when you think you're getting it down, you look around and see that everyone around you is drifting away in the process of figuring their own shit out, and you don't actually have the support system that helped you get this far in the first place. The training wheels are ripped off when you're not looking and now you're not just an adult, but you're alone in it. I'm still in my 20s, so I can't speak to how accurate this is long-term, but it's feeling pretty honest right now. From my experience, loved ones drift like a sine wave, constantly entering and exiting again like a recurring guest in a sitcom. Each time Sophie reenters Frances' life it gives us a moment to do the same thing they're doing. We think back to all that has happened since the last time they met, and we take stock of just how much they have changed. I didn't really notice how much Frances was growing as an independent and responsible person until she stumbled into Sophie at the college fundraiser/auction. Seeing Sophie be the drunk, childish one while Frances tried to support and ground her was such a reversal of their fight in the bathroom at the bar with the very expensive vodka. The low point for each of them seems to coincide with getting drunk and calling Patch an asshole. It was such a sweet moment when Frances finally allowed herself to like Patch. Her possessiveness over Sophie was able to give way to an appreciation of someone who has become a significant part of her life. I really connected with the way Frances grapples with the dying of her dreams. The Story of Us that Sophie and her had crafted has to be pried from her grip, but she seems happier when she finally lets it go! It was keeping her from moving past a part of her life that ended at the start of the movie when Sophie moved away. It is really hard to accept that you might never be the famous dancer, but you might be an incredible choreographer! Your desire to be a part of the thing gets mixed up with your ego very easily, but if the desire is pure, it will survive your hurt feelings. Dance is more important to Frances than being a Dancer, and I think that's beautiful. You can see it in the way she moves and hear it in the way she talks about it. Art wins again!! Sophie might not be the big publisher, but she has a sweet little blog. They might not get to live together anymore, but the bond they have transcends the dimensions we can see. It's hard to imagine that there could be a better scene than the moment they lock eyes across the room. It speaks volumes without uttering a word. I have noticed a bit of a theme with the movie of the month so far (is it Kill the Internet Film Club, or do we have different goals with our different monthly mediums?) Two is a coincidence, but three is a pattern, so let's just say that if the next movie of the month contains a story about two people who love with each other but whose lives constantly tear them apart, I will be expecting Denis Villeneuve's Dune movies to appear in the movie of the month. We've got Duke Leto and Jessica in Dune Part One and Paul and Chani in Dune Part Two, let's make this happen people!! I am aware that the 3-hours-long-ness of the movies makes this a long shot, but I have one role to serve in this community, and it is DUNE.

Jay Oshiki

Ohhhhhh platonic domesticity ohhhhh friendship! This movie is an ode to the grief of losing a piece of your friend the moment they start using “we” instead of “I” once they fall in love. Quick! Someone tell Frances about platonic partnership! Be poly in an asexual way with ur friends! Relationship anarchy! The thing I know I’ll be chewing on like granola for days is the way Frances described what she wants out of any kind of relationship – romantic/sexual/platonic/etc: the looking at each other across the room and feeling the mutual love there. It’s the same way that I don’t care whether sex or romance (?? hi what is romance genuine question I can’t define it) is involved in my relationships, the Big Thing I’m after is the verbal tennis – THE RAPPORT of wit and aligned senses of humor. Turns out there are these soul connections! That supersede the roles our relationships are confined to! I’ll quote it again (I also brought this up w Past Lives): “if we can only be friends, family, or lovers, then lovers fits us best, but that’s not what we are.” TELL ME WHY we must be fucking the person that is supposed to be our Number One Person in order for them to be deserving of that importance. Sometimes you don’t wanna fuck, but friends feels too small to describe what you are to each other! Friends plus….frneids premium…. Also, I’m sad that the ending implied Frances and Benji are gonna fall in love. It’s not that I need Frances to be gay. But I was watching this movie thinking “finally! A representation of a boy/girl friendship that is weirdly intense but hetero/amatonormativity makes you think that you gotta have sex abt it” (see above) Seems like Greta said “no, actually. Let them ksis :o)” I have thoughts about the social compulsion towards marriage and the way that is weirdly holding hands with the theme of Frances not “growing up” and getting her shit together. I also think this movie has big Tick Tick Boom undertones re: struggling artist woes.

Jay Oshiki

also when the "tell me the story of us" part came up I wracked my brain for which internet clown i remember meme-ing it in a youtube video. it was cj. it was folgercest fanfic (rip matt)

Lucas Regis

This one's so near and dear to me that I'm honestly having difficulty writing anything about it. But if I can point any one scene out, I love her receiving the call from Abby after she's already back in NY, and having to miss out on a dinner date with a Jean-Pierre Léaud lookalike (!!!!) and a philosopher and a fun french couple. Ideal blunt rotation!! And then when she actually goes to the meeting and Colleen tells her she could've rescheduled and almost cancelled it herself? One of the most brutal tragedies in cinema, only because I can absolutely see this exact shit happening to me.

al

seeing things unravel after Sophie moved out was so painfully relatable? one facet of your life changes and all sorts of other problems seem to crop up. then you can't even deal with them properly, because so many pieces have fallen out of place. you put some things together with super glue (Ben and Lev) and then more things go wrong. and you're not even sure why things fell out in the first place. hearing strangers you hardly know talk about your best friend's life? that you've heard nothing about?? oooof. that made me feel the lowest, that dinner party. that strange, fish out of water "I don't belong here and I don't know how to relate with these people, or I'm trying and failing" makes me feel like my stomach is in knots. i'm not sure if Fran's ~*soul~* changed, but what i landed on (and what was so satisfying to me as someone in my late 20s) was how she sort of settled in. i guess you could say settled. getting cozy with life. taking the more practical office job and pursuing choreography here and there was a way to find balance. Sophie didn't leave patch and they're not taking the train to the city to make bad decisions like the old times, but she's still Fran's best friend and there's that universe bending, soul intertwined relationship still. its just that there's a new reality they live in, and that's ok. maybe sad and melancholy, but ok. I have such mixed feelings about "growing up" and abandoning my expectations for adulthood but finding other things to throw myself into and finding joy in that. leaning into the way my relationships work now, even if its not prancing around the city at 3am. I like how the end felt optimistic. I was expecting a very sad Frances at the end. micro interaction i loved? when Fran was first at Ben and Lev's apartment and had trouble leaving. or when she had trouble lighting the cigarette in front of the eiffel tower.

benedict.m

lovely tumbly awkward delicate movie, but I'm only gonna talk about the title nothing is more satisfying to me than when something's title is exactly aligned with what the Story is, where it starts & ends. a perfectly chosen word or phrase that defines the outline of the thing you're watching/reading/experiencing, contextualizes it and binds the piece together. before watching it, the title Frances Ha didn't feel especially evocative. idk for me the main character's name is rarely the most interesting title for a story ((lots of exceptions to this ofc)). BUT the little denouement, her last name being cut off in her new apartment being the last thing we see over the credits, works really beautifully. I don't see it as a silly like "there u go ha that's where the quirky name came from", I see it as a final statement on what this story was About. it was about Frances Ha!! the young woman living in a new apartment, having been through a breakup & reuinion with her platonic partner and actually grown a bit. this story's titular focus isn't just "Frances", it's the person Frances is becoming throughout the story, which I think adds to the nostalgic feeling of a lot of this movie. it's about the mess of becoming a new version of yourself, entering a new era, and about looking back on that process with some embarrassment and a lot of affection. how much it took for you to accidentally become Frances Ha. -----------_------------ i had dinner with my brother last week. he's seven years older than me. we talked about a lot of shit--recent death in the family, recent cat death in the family, death in general, high school, being colorblind and trying to have a sense of style--and i talked about how at this point, at 27, I've kind of incidentally become kind of functional and competent just through living enough life. but I'm still just me, and I don't feel much more stable or defined as a person than I used to. I asked him at one point if he feels much different now than he did at my age, and he said wildly different. it was reassuring. it's not like I hate who I am now or anything, but I'm excited to change. I think I've been through enough distinct stages of my life to start to trust that there are gonna be more stages, and they can be rich and interesting and full of love AND ALSO require me to have a little discipline and be vulnerable and consistent. like what this movie's about. 🪑/10 kept feeling cynical about it, it kept winning me over

Emi P

Hi I’m late a little late :P Oh my god, I had never seen this movie before but it really hit close to home. I really related to Frances and how hard was letting things change for her. And how, when she’s trying to close the gap between her and her friends it gets wider because of that kind of clingy behavior and impulsiveness. Like how she created expectations in her head about what the people she loves will do or want and she’ll get really angry or sad if they are not met. People tend to want to get away from that, but I think true love always persist and never fades even if we want it to! Relationships change. Life changes. I also really like when she goes to Paris. Honestly if someone offered an apartment like that I would take their word for it. But I really understand that desire to escape, find other things, new people and leave things behind, I don’t think it really works tho, we can’t escape our ties to our loved ones. For me this is where Frances changes. I think those hours being completely alone, without anyone really knowing where she is and unable to really communicate with people makes her realize that she can survive alone, and the phone call makes her realize that Sophie still loves her even if it is in a different way.

rui

watched this last night for the first time finally with my housemate, one month into moving to a new country, knowing nothing about the film except that it’s greta gerwig! i thought i’d cry, the way i sobbed during ladybird, but i find that all my depth of feeling for the movie comes after — when i’m thinking about all those genius moments of repetition, cinematic and true to life, when i’m reading these analyses and see how much of frances is in other people, how much i saw myself in her,,,, i think frances’ monologue about looking at someone across the room and knowing that they’re Your Person was beautiful, but the part that really gets me in that scene was right before when she talks about abby and who dated whom and the drama of college, and everyone looks a little confused and bored while she’s following that train of thought. sometimes i’m frances in the way where i’m thinking about how i’m sitting at a table with not-sophies. i have my sophie, my sophieS actually, and i’m always incredibly grateful for that. but the presence of my sophies draw into stark contrast when i’m NOT with sophie. i’m here in a new place finding my people, i’m frances in new york post-sophie moving to tokyo. there’s something about being 27 and feeling Young. i’m 25 and i feel the youngest i’ve ever been, childish in my new environment, green at work, figuring things out, the faux pas of being authentic with people you don’t know yet. there’s so much in this movie that’s just. real. silly! that life is silly like that! that there is such a depth of feeling for people, a project that is so concerned with love in a way that isn’t always legibly rendered in our social scripts. sometimes i’m sitting in the sun reading a book and i think, i’m in love with the world! i don’t need it to love me back, but i know that love begets love. and that’s how i felt when frances was running through the streets of new york — i’m in love with the world!!!

saba

rah very interesting movie. oof. lowest moment for me, is when frances meets benji's little autistic lover. i guess for me there is something infuriating about being in proximity to someone. Benji insists that frances is undateable but then dates someone /almost/ like frances, an awkward neurodivergent girl. She is much less witty, and much more pretty. This is me unraveling my own jealousies and deep dark fears. It's not so much that Frances couldn't be like Caroline, its that she could. But maybe that doesn't matter. it seems like frances is after something different than being "dateable". or maybe shes not after anything at all??? I think that frances mainly stays the same while the world around her changes. It seems like at the beginning she is "proud of herself for asking" or "trying to be proactive about her life" after the breakup. It seems that sophie after while is tired of her and frances' moments " are we still doing this" but soon realizes that those moments are what she wants too. I think the highest moment for me, is when they do another impromptu "tell me the story of us" but this time its more realistic, and it actually happens! seeing frances get her own choreography on the ground, which is fucking beautiful, and get her party moment at the end was so satisfying. I love a movie about friendship, and/or partnership that is not particularly sexual, so this hit that chord for me for sure. i think a weird moment for me is when frances goes to paris? when does she decide this? I surely thought that she was joking at the party but no one got the joke, is that when she decides to actually go? What gets me, is that even with this manic spark that she has, she prioritizes this meeting with her higher up, where she essentially gets fired. At the time when her boss says you should go into choreographing, it seems like a burn, a low blow, after you got cut from your dream job -- like a low status position when all you want to do is dance. But after watching Frances' show, it seems like this person becomes almost a mentor, someone who saw something in Frances and in a round about way, lead her to her calling. this all makes me very emotional, the tiny mentorships and things people in power can say that drastically change your life (but this time for better), the romance in small tiny relationships, the commitment to friendships, to relationships, the messing up, and not being all the way together. Time is good stories are good life is good

zooey

The whole movie reminds me of how badly social interactions have been affected by the digital world, like people get all reactive and scared, all because the internet is changing the way we all speak to one another, and the expansion of it has made a lot of ideas so much more exposed. People have more access to this stuff and think "society is degrading and the sacred values of life have been eroded cuz I saw furry porn on twitter." But this movie clearly shows how we can all still be normal humans, even with the internet shit. A lot of people have simply failed to preserve these idealistic "sacred values" through the transition of information that started in the mid-late 90s. We all can still socialize and make an effort to be there for each other like real humans, we just can't get caught up in the shiny magic wand that is mainstream internet. ok this doesn't follow the prompt I just had to get this thought out. I love this movie with my whole heart, it's very comforting. As my dad said, "this movie reminds me of the fact that we are all still just children, no matter how much we feel like we've grown, we still have not matured in every aspect, we might never."

Lou Corben

She is me I am her. I remember seeing this in the cinema with a friend when it first came out, when I was probably 23 or 24, just before an already-planned solo trip to Paris where I’d smoke on the balcony and pretend to read Rimbaud. I think the friend I saw it with was worried about me going alone based on the movie, and asked to tag along haha. So this movie made me very nostalgic. I miss feeling like my whole life was ahead of me and that I’d always be with my best friend and that the world wasn’t crumbling around me. Young people were such Romantics in those days, I miss that. I don’t miss how naive I was. I still relate to feeling left behind by my peers, possibly more so now than before - my friends and I are in our 30s now so them moving on is happening more and more, and more quickly. But I cried at the shots of all her friends coming to support her show. I cried again at the end thinking about my friends - a group than began to form around the time of Frances Ha. We lost an important part of our circle to a brutal brain tumor this summer, and one of the group said early on in his diagnosis that his mum had never known such a close group of friends. Cue me bursting into tears. One of the biggest things I wanted when I was young to live in a house with a group of friends like the Friends in Friends, and while we were never exactly like them, and we’ve almost all moved on from that house now, for a while we had it, and that’s beautiful. I’ve cried a lot this year, not just about the awful situation, but about how much I love them and how proud I am of how everyone got through the last 18 months, and held each other together. I’m really looking forward to our Halloween get together - our first gathering since Jasper’s beautiful funeral. I’m gonna just stare at them all across the room and they’ll probably pull faces and flip me off. Bliss.