Frances Ha

Frances Ha
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Noah Baumbach
Produced by
Written by
Starring
Cinematography Sam Levy
Edited by Jennifer Lame
Production
company
  • RT Features
  • Pine District
  • Scott Rudin Productions
Distributed by IFC Films
Release date
Running time
 86 minutes[2]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $3 million[3]
Box office $11.3 million[3]

Frances Ha is a 2012 American black and white comedy-drama film, directed by Noah Baumbach and written by Baumbach and Greta Gerwig. Gerwig also plays the title role. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on September 1, 2012, and began a limited release on May 17, 2013. It was released by IFC Films.

Plot

Frances Halladay is a 27-year-old dancer who lives with her best friend Sophie in Brooklyn. When Sophie decides she wants to relocate to her dream neighborhood of Tribeca, Frances is unable to afford it and is forced to find someplace else to live. She moves to Chinatown and shares an apartment with her friends Lev and Benji for a brief period. She visits her hometown of Sacramento for Christmas where she sees her family and reconnects with high school friends. She spends an uneventful two-days in Paris that she pays for on a credit card. She returns to Vassar, her alma mater, to work as a waitress and summer RA, but finally returns to Washington Heights in Manhattan. Frances laments her lack of money, her poor prospects as a professional dancer, and her increasingly strained relationship with Sophie. She reconciles with Sophie and enjoys a modest but satisfying existence as a fledgling choreographer, teaching dance to young children, and bookkeeper for her former dance company, exploring a potential relationship with Benji, and living alone in her own apartment.

Cast

Production

Frances Ha is directed by Noah Baumbach and written by Baumbach and Greta Gerwig. Gerwig, who also stars in the film, announced it in April 2012, though Baumbach's involvement was not revealed until the film's listing in the Telluride Film Festival's lineup. Gerwig had starred in Baumbach's 2010 film Greenberg, and they decided to collaborate again.[4] They exchanged ideas, developed characters, and eventually co-wrote the script. Gerwig has stated that she did not anticipate starring in the film as well, but Baumbach thought she suited the part. Filming locations included New York City, Sacramento, Paris, and Vassar College, which is Baumbach's alma mater.[5]

Soundtrack

The filmmakers included a number of pop songs in the film, including "Every 1's a Winner" by Hot Chocolate; "Blue Sway" by Paul McCartney; "Chrome Sitar" by T.Rex, and "Modern Love" by David Bowie.[4] "Modern Love" is featured in a scene in Frances Ha that is a remake of a sequence in Leos Carax's Mauvais Sang, where Denis Lavant runs through the streets.[6]

The soundtrack includes a song by Felix Laband and references multiple French films; it contains music by Georges Delerue, Jean Constantin and Antoine Duhamel, who originally wrote for films of the French New Wave.[7]

Release

Frances Ha premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on September 1, 2012.[8] The Los Angeles Times said "audiences seemed pleasantly surprised by the warmth from the often-mordant Baumbach."[5] The film also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2012,[9] after which IFC Films acquired North- and Latin-American rights to distribute the film in theaters.[10] Frances Ha also screened at the New York Film Festival on September 30, 2012,[4] and at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in June 2013.[11]

The film had a limited release in the United States on May 17, 2013,[1] and was released on Blu-ray and DVD on the Criterion Collection label on November 12, 2013.[12]

Reception

Critical response

Frances Ha has been met with critical acclaim. Based on 167 reviews collected by review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 92% approval rating, with an average score of 7.8/10. The website's critical consensus is: "Audiences will need to tolerate a certain amount of narrative drift, but thanks to sensitive direction from Noah Baumbach and an endearing performance from Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha makes it easy to forgive."[13] Metacritic calculated an average score of 82 out of 100 based on 35 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[14]

Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice praised Gerwig's performance, writing, "It's a relief that Frances Ha isn't as assertively frank, in the 'Look, ma, no shame!' way, as Girls. And this is partly Gerwig's vision, too. No other movie has allowed her to display her colors like this. Frances is a little dizzy and frequently maddening, but Gerwig is precise in delineating the character's loopiness: Her lines always hit just behind the beat, like a jazz drummer who pretends to flub yet knows exactly what's up."[15]

Peter Debruge, reviewing for Variety, described Frances Ha, "This modest monochromatic lark doesn't present a story—or even a traditional sequence of scenes—so much as it offers spirited glimpses into the never-predictable life of Frances, a 27-year-old dancer." He said Frances was "a character whose unexceptional concerns and everyday foibles prove as compelling as any New York-set concept picture, delivering an affectionate, stylishly black-and-white portrait of a still-unfledged Gotham gal".[8] Linda Holmes, writing for National Public Radio, said, "I have limited patience for the attitude that people talking about nothing is cool and subversive, or that obnoxious people are enthralling, or that people from New York are more interesting than other people," though she found the film agreeable: "What helped Frances grow on me as both a character and a movie was Gerwig's vexing—and yes, sometimes intentionally irritating—performance as a young woman who's so frenetically trying to fit in that she can't, who's so desperately trying to grab onto something that she slips off every time." She concluded, "The film is funny and likable, despite the trappings of self-conscious New York navel-gazing."[16]

The Los Angeles Times highlighted Gerwig's foray as part of a trend of female actors becoming writers or co-writers; other examples include Zoe Kazan with Ruby Sparks and Rashida Jones with Celeste and Jesse Forever.[17] Baumbach filmed Frances Ha with his cinematographer Sam Levy digitally and in black-and-white, the latter to emulate in part collaborations by Woody Allen and his cinematographer Gordon Willis, in films like Manhattan (1979).[5] CBS News compared Frances Ha's style to the works of Jim Jarmusch and François Truffaut.[18]

Accolades

List of Accolades
Award / Film Festival Category Recipient(s) Result
Bodil Awards[19] Best American Film Frances Ha Nominated
British Independent Film Awards[20] Best International Independent Film Frances Ha Nominated
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards[21] Best Actress in a Comedy Greta Gerwig Nominated
Casting Society of America[22] Outstanding Achievement in Casting - Low Budget Feature - Drama/Comedy Douglas Aibel (casting director), Henry Russell Bergstein (associate) Nominated
Central Ohio Film Critics Association[23] Best Picture Frances Ha Nominated
Best Actress Greta Gerwig Nominated
Golden Globe Awards Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical Greta Gerwig Nominated
Independent Spirit Awards[24] Best Feature Noah Baumbach, Scott Rudin, Lila Yacoub and Rodrigo Teixeira Nominated
Best Editing Jennifer Lame Nominated
London Film Critics Circle Film Awards[25] Film of the Year Frances Ha Nominated
Actress of the Year Greta Gerwig Nominated
Technical Achievement of the Year Sam Levy (cinematography) Nominated
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival[26] Audience Award Noah Baumbach 3rd place
Toronto Film Critics Association Awards[27] Best Actress Greta Gerwig 2nd Runner-up
Vancouver Film Critics Circle[28] Best Actress Greta Gerwig Nominated

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Jagernauth, Keith (November 30, 2012). "Noah Baumbach's 'Frances Ha' Gets Spring 2013 Release Date; 'End Of Watch' Coming Back To Theaters Next Week". The Playlist. indieWire.
  2. ↑ "FRANCES HA (15)". British Board of Film Classification. June 26, 2013. Archived from the original on May 13, 2014. Retrieved June 26, 2013.
  3. 1 2 "Frances Ha". The Numbers. Retrieved 2014-06-01.
  4. 1 2 3 Rosen, Christopher (October 1, 2012). "'Frances Ha' At New York Film Festival: Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach Bring Their 'Pop Song' To New York". The Huffington Post.
  5. 1 2 3 Olsen, Mark (September 7, 2012). "'Frances Ha' bonds Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig". Los Angeles Times.
  6. ↑ Brody, Richard (2013-05-15). ""Frances Ha" and the Pursuit of Happiness". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2017-11-15.
  7. ↑ Eggert, Brian (4 April 2016), Frances Ha (2013), Deep Focus Review, retrieved 6 June 2018
  8. 1 2 Debruge, Peter (September 1, 2012). "Frances Ha". Variety.
  9. ↑ "Frances Ha". tiff.net. Toronto International Film Festival. Archived from the original on August 5, 2012. Retrieved December 10, 2012.
  10. ↑ McNary, Dave (September 20, 2012). "IFC Films closes U.S. on 'Frances Ha'". Variety.
  11. ↑ "Edinburgh Film Festival programme unveiled". 29 May 2013. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  12. ↑ "Frances Ha (2013) - The Criterion Collection". Criterion.com. Retrieved 2014-06-01.
  13. ↑ "Frances Ha (2013)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
  14. ↑ "Frances Ha Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved September 10, 2013.
  15. ↑ Zacharek, Stephanie (May 15, 2013). "Greta Gerwig Stars in Noah Baumbach's Dating Manual, Frances Ha". The Village Voice.
  16. ↑ Holmes, Linda (September 9, 2012). "TIFF '12: Baumbach's 'Frances Ha' Proves We're All A Little Unfinished". National Public Radio.
  17. ↑ Olsen, Mark (September 7, 2012). "'Frances Ha' bonds Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-11-15. With this foray into screenwriting, Gerwig, 29, has become part of a current wave of actresses writing or co-writing their own material, a group that includes Zoe Kazan ("Ruby Sparks") and Rashida Jones ("Celeste and Jesse Forever").
  18. ↑ Morgan, David (September 30, 2012). "N.Y. Film Festival: Noah Baumbach's whimsical 'Frances Ha'". CBS News.
  19. ↑ "Denmark's Bodil Prizes: 'Nympho-maniac', 'The Hunt' Lead Nominations". Deadline Hollywood. January 7, 2014. Retrieved March 10, 2014.
  20. ↑ "Nominations 2013: BIFA". British Independent Film Awards. Retrieved March 10, 2014.
  21. ↑ "19th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards Nominations". Broadcast Film Critics Association. December 16, 2013. Retrieved March 10, 2014.
  22. ↑ "Artios Awards: Casting Society Reveals 2013 Nominees". Variety. August 19, 2013. Retrieved March 10, 2014.
  23. ↑ "Central Ohio Film Critics Award Nominations". Indiewire. January 3, 2012. Retrieved March 10, 2014.
  24. ↑ "2014 Spirit Awards: '12 Years A Slave', 'All Is Lost', 'Frances Ha', 'Inside Llewyn Davis' & 'Nebraska' Nab Best Feature Noms". Deadline Hollywood. November 26, 2013. Retrieved March 10, 2014.
  25. ↑ "London Critics' Circle Announces 2014 Film Awards Nominations". London Film Critics Circle. December 17, 2013. Retrieved February 3, 2014.
  26. ↑ "Black Nights Film Fest Breaks Audience Record". Estonian Public Broadcasting. December 4, 2013. Retrieved March 10, 2014.
  27. ↑ "TFCA Announces 2013 Awards". Toronto Film Critics Association. December 16, 2013. Archived from the original on January 17, 2014. Retrieved March 10, 2014.
  28. ↑ "And the 2014 VFCC Nominees Are..." Vancouver Film Critics Circle. December 22, 2013. Retrieved March 10, 2014.
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