This guest post by Rachel Wortherley appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.
At first glance, director Noah Baumbach’s seventh film, Frances Ha, also co-written by its star, Greta Gerwig (Frances), can be summed up as the following: 20-something Frances Halladay aimlessly struggles to survive in the harsh climate of New York City, while trying to become a professional dancer and mature into adulthood. While this is the case, the most important aspect is the relationship between Frances and her best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner). In the scope of cinematic female friendships, Frances Ha explores it as a beautiful story of love, loss, and courage.
The film begins with a dizzying montage of Frances and Sophie engaging in behaviors that range from adolescent to intimate. They blissfully play fight, giggle uncontrollably, and have cozy bedroom confessions. They are the epitome of inseparable. At one point, Frances muses, “Tell me the story of us.” Sophie in a nurturing, maternal tone recites their future as a bedtime story. They achieve all their dreams: Sophie successfully becomes a publishing mogul, and Frances a famous modern dance artist. Their lives will be filled with European excursions and honorary degrees–so many honorary degrees.
So far, we are witnessing the familiar trope of sisterhood, support, and unwavering affection that is inherent in similarly themed films such as Steel Magnolias, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, or Waiting to Exhale. These women are in love with each another and their friendships can weather the toughest hurdles. However, the quality that separates Frances Ha from the latter two is that men are a backdrop to the friendship, goals, and ambitions of Frances and Sophie. The “story of us” does not include husbands and babies. When men are spoken about, it is usually brief and fleeting. Frances nonchalantly recounts that she and her boyfriend, Dan, have broken up. He wants to move in together, while Frances’ loyalty is to her lease and partnership with Sophie. Frances is not heartbroken. She is not sobbing on the window sill as a soulful R&B song swells in the background. While they love men, men do not dominate their dynamic and neither female is defined by them. At this point, they are one another’s significant other.
This hazy love story takes a turn when Sophie abruptly moves in with another girlfriend in the trendy and more expensive neighborhood of Tribeca. In my experience, people who have seen this film often mistake Sophie’s actions as abandoning Frances for her boyfriend, Patch. The fact that it happens differently is a breath of fresh air. Rather, it represents an early point in which audiences experience the divide between Frances and Sophie in physical and emotional aspects. Sophie sees the opportunity to move on and fulfill her dreams, while Frances’ dream is fractured. The story of “us” that precedes this action becomes their separate, respective stories: “the story of Frances” and “the story of Sophie.”
A friendship that was once whimsical and carefree gives way to passive aggressiveness and tension. Upon Sophie’s move, an irate Frances blasts her over the phone for coveting a tea kettle they bought when moving in together. Yet, at no point does it become Mean Girls. It is absent of “burn books,” idle gossip, or derision. Here begins the angst, confusion, and fear that is familiar when the one constant in our lives changes. Frances is left alone to figure life out by herself. There is no one present to reprimand her for picking at her acne, share a cigarette, or laugh with hysterically as she urinates off a subway platform. Thus begins Frances’ search for companionship.
One of the greatest qualities about this film is that Baumbach and Gerwig, whether consciously or unconsciously, adhere to the “Bechdel test.” While Frances interacts with men, the most dominant male/female scenes being with her newfound roommates Lev (Adam Driver) and Benji (Michael Zegen), it is quite platonic–almost innocent and childlike. When they speak it usually involves her job, Sophie, or her feelings of not being “grown up.” They in turn appreciate her quirkiness and good humor. At this point, we cut to Frances’ sleep being disrupted by Lev and Benji who engage her in a tickle fight. Laughter resounds and all is well again in her world. In typical comedies, when most writers place a female character in this situation, the easy route is to pair Frances with one of the men (likely Benji who makes his attraction for Frances obvious by the film’s end). But this is a different kind of “romantic comedy.” It is a platonic love story between two friends.
Rather, Lev and Benji fill the void of loneliness that pervades sans Sophie. This pattern continues when Frances, unable to afford rent at the guys’ Chinatown apartment, temporarily moves in with Rachel (Grace Gummer), her superior in the dance company. With her, Frances attempts to vainly re-enact the play fights, as Rachel screams “stop” and “ahoy sexy” inside jokes. At this stage Frances is coping with the emptiness of losing someone she dubs “the same person” as well as a professional impasse. Sophie works in publishing and has a significant other. In terms of the “story of us,” these successes, or failures, are not occurring as they imagined, or simultaneously. Their story continues to slip out of their grasp.
It should be noted that Frances Ha accurately depicts patterns in female friendships. Usually in films, women engage in a huge blowout that eventually resolves itself at the end of the film. The heroines usually return to a childhood memory or place from the past that reunites them. Or, in comedies, their resolution comes by way of a ridiculously, over-the-top physical fight. But as previously stated, Frances and Sophie are passive aggressive. Prior to Frances and Sophie’s public bathroom blow-out, a scene in which Frances exclaims, “Don’t treat me like a three-hour brunch friend,” there are quiet moments that led up to this. Sophie makes biting comments to Frances that Frances is still messy. Sophie also makes it clear that Patch is a presence who equally, if not more, knows her on an intimate level.
After their dispute, they don’t speak for a while until Sophie calls Frances to invite her to a party. She and Patch are moving to Japan. While they apologize for their behavior toward each other, Sophie for her passiveness and Frances for her aggression, they’re still unable to tell each other their innermost truths. Frances does not divulge that she did not make it into the company’s Christmas show, while Sophie does not share her apprehensions about getting serious with Patch. This can be interpreted as prideful, or a way to save face, but it is instead a serene moment in which they resolve their issue rather than dwell on the past.
Yet, the most pivotal scenes appear toward the end. At a low point, Frances has now returned to her and Sophie’s alma mater as a residential assistant to make more money, while a newly engaged Sophie and Patch appear at the college’s gala. Upon Sophie and Patch’s brief falling out, Sophie and Frances are reunited. An inebriated Sophie expresses her doubts and fears of growing up while Frances confesses that she loves Patch if Sophie does. They revert to the image in the beginning of the film: cozy twin bed confessions, copious I love yous, and talk of moving back in together. Frances also complies with Sophie’s pet peeve of no socks in bed. All is right again. That is, until sober Sophie leaves Frances in the morning to mend her relationship with Patch. Frances is abandoned yet again, only this time, a barefoot Frances attempts to chase after her to no avail. Looking down at her bare feet on the pavement, Frances realizes she has to stop chasing the past.
Frances and Sophie’s “one night stand” allows them to create their separate moments of courage. Frances finds alternative methods of achieving her success, lives in an apartment by herself, and eventually choreographs her own dance troupe. She learns to be alone, rather than lonely. Sophie, who appeared as the independent one in their friendship, is now co-dependent in her marriage to Patch. She is committing herself to a long-term relationship that is more complicated than moving in with another friend. They’re both comfortable living in their own skin. Yet, they experience a moment Frances describes earlier in the film:
“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.”
Like Frances and Sophie, our first loves are our best friends. They’re an extension of us so much so, that a proverbial break-up is inherently heartbreaking. It forces us into becoming independent, partake in self-discovery, and recognize that life will take us in different directions. Frances and Sophie’s relationship is fresh because while they are now living separate lives, they still maintain love and respect for each other. The friendship becomes about the present, rather than the past or future. Ultimately their courage lies in knowing that while their roads may diverge, their bond remains as strong as looking across the room and glowing in each other’s happiness.
Rachel Wortherley is a recent graduate of Iona College in New Rochelle, New York. Her downtime consists of devouring copious amounts of literature, television shows, and films. She hopes to gain a doctorate in English literature and become a professional screenwriter.