In a review written for The Guardian, John Patterson uses the word “shapeless” to describe Noah Baumbach’s film Frances Ha (starring and co-written by Greta Gerwig). Patterson’s review is perceptive, analytical, and, in some instances, cutting. I’m not sure what the impulse was for choosing that adjective but frankly, it’s an apt one. The film captures the uncertain, unstructured years of one’s twenties, a period that often resists neat narratives.
Frances, the titular character, is a 27-year-old woman in New York.
She has a best friend, a messy apartment (which she blames on her schedule), and a growing-fainter-by-the-minute dream of making it as a professional dancer. She’s charming and awkward, a little self-absorbed yet lonely, and possessing a woefully familiar quality that made her hard to watch at times because, yikes, it felt like watching yourself.
One commenter on YouTube wrote: So basically this movie it’s perfect to watch if you’re in your late twenties and your life is going nowhere. Under the same thread, someone replies: [Y]ou can be at any age and your life could be going nowhere as well *insert smiley face*.
The post catches me off-guard, and I laugh because it’s funny and true (or is it only funny because it’s true?).
There’s a trend on TikTok that’s been doing rounds on my FYP. The first slide reads “My favorite horror movie,” but when you swipe, it’s a poster for a drama or coming-of-age film. Occasionally, it’s an anime where a beloved character meets their doom, but more often, it’s movies or shows that depict everyday life. Ordinary stuff. Things that could and may have already happened in too close proximity and resemblance to your own experiences. The post catches me off-guard, and I laugh because it’s funny and true (or is it only funny because it’s true?). In comedy, as in horror, it’s all about the setup, and sometimes the real, terrifying thing is actually what’s right in front of you.
Frances Ha is easily a four-star watch.
Gerwig’s distinct flavor of person, her “smarts and unself-awareness,” gives the movie the energy and presence it has. But the triumph of Baumbach’s film is found in its role as the gracious interlocutor—mediator of the hard conversations: friendships that shift, dreams that slip away, the compromises we never thought we’d make in the aftermath of the inevitable.
In the film’s opening sequence, Frances is being shown polaroids of Siamese cats by her partner. Their conversation then segues into an invitation for her to move in—an invitation she turns down (not once, but twice), citing her commitment to Sophie (her best friend) and their shared lease. But to anyone listening, it’s obvious that it’s not really about the lease. Baumbach understands that we don’t just live in the world; we live in the context of it. And context is steeped in metaphor.
When I saw that, I felt something turn in the pit of my stomach, a latent unease that’s just oh-so-familiar. How could Baumbach so viscerally capture the feeling of watching your own life overtake you?
The visual apparatus of the moving image then provides a record of both the object being observed and the complex systems in which it exists. In Frances Ha, as in real life, it’s less about what’s being said and more about what lies underneath the surface of things.
Later, on a train ride, Sophie shares news about wanting to move into a new apartment in the West Village, hesitating only ever so slightly on account of her friend. “I wish it was going to be with you,” Sophie coos, and I think Frances just nods.
When I saw that, I felt something turn in the pit of my stomach, a latent unease that’s just oh-so-familiar. How could Baumbach so viscerally capture the feeling of watching your own life overtake you? The pieces unfolding even as they’re being swallowed by memory and time? Just one big cycle of leaving or being left behind.
The film holds moments like these with tenderness and understanding. Like it knows how precious the passage between childhood and adulthood is—not fixed as lines but recurring and porous, like a second skin or a room you could walk into. Frances clings to a life that fits like clothes she’s grown too big and too tall for. Sometimes, it’s not that we refuse to grow up. It’s that we can’t stop it.
The film doesn’t reserve beauty or romance for the picturesque. It doesn’t shy away from the tough, gritty work required in trying to find your footing in the world.
One of the foremost criticisms of the movie is how it lacks a central plot, but I think that’s what makes it so endearing. As viewers, we are taken alongside as Frances learns to navigate (or stumble through) the subtleties and nuances of what it means to create a life for oneself. We see her running through crowded streets on her way to work. We’re there when she receives news of her company’s cutbacks and finds herself unable to pay rent.
The film doesn’t reserve beauty or romance for the picturesque. It doesn’t shy away from the tough, gritty work required in trying to find your footing in the world. Maybe that was Baumbach’s way of saying that a life like that is still a life. Still worthy of contemplation and celebration.
The first time Frances’ full name is revealed, it’s near the end when she’s writing down the tag for her mailbox—FRANCES HALLIDAY, a name too long to be completely displayed. One review writes that it’s like a coda, a way for Frances, in all her late-blooming glory, to show people that she’s made it (or is making it), inch by inch and day by day. Through these small and unnoticed details that, in hindsight, make up a life.
