“Frances Ha” and Other Musings
Frances: “It’s that thing when you’re with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it… but it’s a party… and you’re both talking to other people, and you’re laughing and shining… and you look across the room and catch each other’s eyes… but — but not because you’re possessive, or it’s precisely sexual… but because… that is your person in this life. And it’s funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it’s this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It’s sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don’t have the ability to perceive them. That’s — That’s what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess.”
I don’t understand Frances Ha, at least not entirely. I usually react to movies that I don’t entirely understand by being dismissive, saying they aren’t for me, or just watching them and rarely bringing them up again. However, there are moments in Baumbach’s “Frances Ha” that I relate to entirely. This is not the first time I’ve soapboxed about a Baumbach film (check My “Marriage Story” Review on Letterboxd), but my feelings around this movie differ from mine around Marriage Story.
I connect to Frances, heavily. It’s safe to say that I’m not as unique as her character, but I really want to be. I envy her ability to be comfortable with her awkwardness and her differences from others. It’s clear that she recognizes her differences from those around her, but she’s unapologetically herself, and that’s something that I truly admire about her.
Her wonder for life is something I aspire to have. A wonder that frees my mind from constructs and shackles that I’ve placed on it. Her creativity is enviable also, in the sense that she is easily able to create narratives in her head that she believes wholeheardetly. Generally, Frances doesn’t take herself too seriously, but she definitely recognizes that she’s not like everyone else. That’s where I feel as though I relate. Sometimes I feel like only a few people really GET me. There are times where I have felt like I’m with MY person and felt similarly to how Frances feels about her best friend, Sophie. I’ve also felt that pressure from the outside world to find a job that you love and are passionate about, even though I’ve been much more passionate about the people that I spend time with.
Again, despite the similarities, what I envy about Frances is her general ability to not take her life too seriously, embrace her weirdness, enjoy her life, and be HERSELF without reservation. Baumbach and Gerwig were able to create a character that I think a lot of college kids and people who are just getting out of college can relate to. Does Frances know her life’s purpose? Probably not. But does she LIVE almost every day of her life? I’d argue that she does.
I think that I can learn a lot from Frances. I’m cursed with a spell that causes me to consistently take my self and my life seriously as if everyone of my actions is of major, obscene importance. I don’t have enough fun because every action I take seems so damn important that almost every action is under intense scrutiny from my self-critic. I like to think that Frances lives in the moment too much for her self-critic to have a consistent voice that pervades through her actions. I try hard to live in the moment, but my self-critic tends to get in the way of me doing that. If I lived in my own fantasy world, my self-critic would tell me that other people would judge me, or would act like I’m stupid. However, it seems as though Frances has no qualms embracing and partially living in her own fantasy world. That’s so admirable.
Adaptability is another important thing that I can learn. Sure, Frances isn’t the only character to ever be portrayed on screen who adapts to circumstances, but some of my similarities to my experience make me pay more attention to the ways in which we’re different. Frances is used to not being in control and rolling with life as it comes, whereas that tends to scare the living shit out of me. Sure, I can be super adaptable sometimes, but it’s not necessarily a core instinct of mine. I like control, and I like not being forced to adapt to circumstances on the spot, and I rather like being able to plan things out so that I feel comfortable doing whatever I choose to do. However, life doesn’t give you complete control over your life. LIFE happens. Enjoy control where you can get it, but don’t expect it. I can’t have a life devoid of stress and full of only good. I avoid risks to try and diminish the stress of social interaction, but some form of stress bugs me nonetheless. Stress will be there, it just depends on how I choose to treat it. I’m sure that Frances wasn’t a person who never experienced stress. However, it makes sense to me that Frances was not one to let stress control her psyche, or dominate her decision-making. She lived in the moment and not in the deep-thinking processes of her head. She lived a more unfiltered life than I have up to this point. It’s time for me to over-think less.
So, in honor of that statement and of Frances Ha, I’m not going to continue to over-think my relation to Frances Ha, what I envy about her, what I need to improve, etc. One of the best words she used in those quotes was “shining”. No, not “The Shining”, but one’s physical act of shining, what I’d interpret to mean as when one is THEMSELF without INHIBITION. If I can take anything out of Frances Ha, it’s that allowing myself to shine more is of great importance to me. Shining is a lot of things: It’s self-love, self-acceptance, and it is LIVING. Shine more, shine often. That is all. Going to go back to my secret world that no one else knows about :).
