Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig’s playful ‘Frances Ha’ (2012) chronicles the life of immature dance graduate Frances, who, while living the hipster life in New York gets dumped by her sensible best friend. The plot is based around that moment in your life (circa 30) when you realize you can’t be young forever, or more precisely that if you try to remain young forever, no one will take you seriously.
Sitting in bed with her best friend Sophie, Frances pleads “tell me the story of us?!” “Again?” asks Sophie disbelievingly.”The story of us” – a cute dream of the future describes Frances and Sophie’s plans to achieve honorary degrees, have flying careers and so on. The difference between Frances and Sophie is that in Frances’s mind this world exists only in the future. Sophie is already trying to make it happen.
What made this movie interesting to me is that it shows a young woman making her way in the world almost completely unconcerned with dating and men. The breakdown of a female friendship leads to her reassess her life and wonder if she is making the right decisions. Dating happens in the movie but only on a light-hearted level. Frances says she is “not a real person yet” when her credit card bounces in a restaurant, making her a different type of heroine than Bridget Jones was 14 years ago in another comedy.
Bridget Jones was created based on the novels of Helen Fielding, and was set in a 1990’s London- which had it’s own set of problems. Although Bridget is ostensibly a well-to-do professional with jobs in media, a central London property, a busy love and social life, she is distraught to find herself (shock horror) thirty, single and of an average weight. The movie’s world keeps making Bridget question herself in terms of her relationship status, whereas in Frances Ha, this hardly comes into the equation.
Two comparable dinner party scenes make for an interesting contrast of current and past preoccupations.In the first, Bridget is the only single woman at a dinner party populated by “smug marrieds” who openly discuss her biological clock and try to hook her up with a suitable partner. A silence descends on the room when she is rudely asked why so many thirty year old female professionals are single and childless ‘these days’..
While family life is referenced in the dinner party scene from Frances Ha by a parent passing around photos of a baby on a mobile phone, it serves merely as an indication for how out of touch Frances is with the possibility of children or settling down. The ratio of couples to single people is also notable, as there is only one couple at this dinner party compared to the Bridget Jones scene. The conversation that causes the whole room to fall silent in this movie instead hinges on how Frances’s career is non-existent, leading her to divulge personal information about how she is only an apprentice at her job and lives on a friend’s couch. Other guests are preoccupied with travel, career, and family whereas Frances babbles mindlessly about her friend- group like a teen at a grown-ups supper. The reaction of the other guests is mild embarrassment and it is clear that Frances has violated the status quo by not having her career or finances in order. More importantly, Frances does not have the sense to remain silent on certain topics which could provoke embarrassment. Whereas in Bridget Jones, career/ money issues are hardly mentioned, the broad focus of Frances Ha is succeeding professionally and attaining the vestiges of wealth, culture and sophistication. Perhaps considering that we are on the far side of a recession, these themes are not purely in the realm of feminism but seep also into the economic.
Another comparison includes the ‘feel good’ sequence showing Frances dancing her way around Manhattan to David Bowies Modern Love. Frances is alone, totally absorbed in her own movements, in her own path through the busy streets. She is filled it seems with the joy of her youth and her body, flitting along the pavement. When she returns to her apartment, the reality of her situation hits her and she sort of winces a bit but seems light-hearted enough about it all.
In stark contrast in Bridget Jones we see a pajama- wearing Bridget alone in her apartment, drinking and watching Seinfeld, before tearfully lip syncing “All By Myself” by Celine Dion. Surrounded by the fruits of her gainful employment – a cosy home with a fire, phone, television etc we see her isolated in a world in which none of her experiences are considered valid without someone to share them with.
Frances on the other hand has nothing but aspires to having what Bridget really has, a circle of approving friends, money and a job in her chosen field. Both women face the admonishment of their peers for not living up to expectations for their age/ social class. However in Frances Ha it is refreshing to see a movie with a female protagonist where a relationship is not the end goal and where the woman’s fertility/ status is not obsessed about.
Book Urchin 