Frankie

Director Ira Sachs (Kept the Lights On, Little Men, Forty Shades of Blue) wrote the screenplay with Mauricio Zacharias for this gentle whisper of a film that is one of the more subtle, visually impressive, and tender reflections on the subtleties of relationships and families to grace the screen.

Frankie (Isabelle Huppert) is a famous and much admired film actress who has gathered her dissipated family in Sintra, Portugal as a gesture of farewell: she is in Stage IV metastatic carcinoma. The ensemble includes her first husband Michel (Pascal Greggory) and her son by him Paul (Jérémie Renier), her present husband Jimmy (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter Sylvia (Vinette Robinson) her husband Ian (Ariyon Bakare) and granddaughter Maya (Sennia Nanua), along with Frankie's longterm hairdresser (from films) friend Ilene (Marisa Tomei) who is with her co-worker Gary (Greg Kinnear). The interweaving of these interesting personalities creates intimate side stories as they gather in this picturesque locale, the home of a magical fountain of life. Frankie has envisioned the way she hopes old connections among this disparate group of people will correct, and while those ideas don't materialize, the mysteries of companionship and love continue to find their own destinies.

The spectacularly sensitive cinematography by Rui Poças and the special atmosphere the music of Schubert's Moments Musicaux and Debussy's Arabesques allow the film to be pensive and understated. The quiet prolonged ending of the film is worthy of awards, so well sculpted by director Sachs that it allows the messages of the film to absorb in stillness.

In an age when high tech CGI, noisy action, and crude physicality films dominate the screens, this little film is a gentle reminder of those aspects of living that deserve out appreciation.

I saw 'Frankie' today (Oct. 6, 2019) at the Mill Valley Film Festival. A more slow-moving, uninteresting film would be hard to find. Other critics of the film have done a good job of laying out the plot, so I won't take up your time. My low rating is based on the low (lowest) energy that this film puts out. It is as though no one has the energy to show emotion. As though the Portugal heat has had its effect on everyone. But more than anything else the film runs as though it were a table-read; actors with script in hand, doing a first read at a table. The camera work is leisurely at best. This could be a TV soap-opera episode as easily as a theatrical film.

And for that there's no excuse.

Then why, you might ask, the four stars. For Ms. Tomei and Mrs. Hupert, that's why.

In "Frankie", the eponymous French movie star (played by Isabelle Huppert) is dying of cancer and gathers her complex family and friends around her for one last 'family holiday' in the picturesque Portuguese town of Sintra. We follow the events of a single day of the vacation as frictions and back-stories of the players become more evident.

Positives:

• Sintra looks gorgeous: as a regular visitor to Portugal's Silver Coast, it's a place I've not yet visited. The cinematography of the region makes me want to change that.

• There are a couple of decent scenes in the movie: both involving the trustworthy Greg Kinnear: one involving him trying to sell a film idea to Frankie (who knows, but won't tell him, that she won't be around for it); and another with Kinnear and Tomei at their hotel.

Negatives:

• Where do I start.... the film is as dull as ditchwater!

-- A criticism I had of the otherwise impressive "Nomadland" was that the story arc of the leading character was shallow and not very compelling. The story arc here is a bloody straight line! Virtually nothing happens in the movie and it goes nowhere. Events occur as isolated snippets in the storyline. For example, the 'loss' of an expensive bracelet is randomly lobbed into the story, but then is never referenced back in any future narrative.

-- When the ending happened (which the illustrious Mrs Movie Man referred to as a "blessing") it was a non-event. The lady behind us in the cinema exclaimed "WHAT????". And I could understand her frustration.

• The direction is distinctly lacking. Aside from the couple of decent scenes (see above), most of the shots feel like first takes, with the actors doing read-throughs of the clunky script to try to work out how to best sell the lines. "OK, time to film it for real now". But director Sachs has already shouted "Cut and Print.... now who's for some more vinos and Pastel de Nata?"! Were they aiming for some sort of naturalistic fumbling of the character's conversations? For that's how it comes across, and it's just awful.

• The script feels like a wasted opportunity. The set-up should have been a good one for an intense drama. And there are flashes (merely flashes) of potential brilliance in there: a formative step-brother/step-sister incident is based around the film "Grease", which is mirrored (either cleverly or purely through coincidence!?) in the beach-side romance of Maya (Sennia Nanua) and Portuguese holiday-maker Pedro (Manuel Sá Nogueira). And does the homosexual Michel (Pascal Greggory) have his sights on Jimmy (Brendan Gleeson)? Or Tiago? Or both? None of these potentially interesting strands ever get tied down..

• Aside from the poor script and the poor direction, some of the acting performances are unconvincing. "The Girl with all the Gifts" was a fabulous film - it made my number 2 slot of 2016! And I called out young Sennia Nanua as "one to watch for the future" as the zombie girl at the heart of the film. Here she was 17 at the time of filming. But I'm afraid I just didn't find her convincing as the moody teen. (By the way, I only single her out, since I was so impressed with her previous performance: with the exception perhaps of Kinnear, Tomei and Carloto Cotta. None of the rest of the cast consistently shine either.)

Summary Thoughts: It's a real shame that my first visit back to the cinema was such a let-down. Ira Sachs is not a director I know, but he comes with a strong reputation (for 2016's "Little Men"). But here he delivers a plain stinker. I'm afraid this movie has a word associated with it, and the word is "Avoid".

(For the full graphical review, please check out "One Mann's Movies" on t'interweb or Facebook. Thanks.)

As someone who can watch Brendan Gleeson in anything, this movie left me completely unmoved. None of the characters seemed to have their hearts in their roles. The 3-star rating is solely because Gleeson at least gave it a go. But I wouldn't be surprised if he's sorry he has this clunker on his resume.

Greetings again from the darkness. Sintra is a resort town in Portugal, not far from Lisbon. It is breathtakingly beautiful with mountains, beaches, cliffs, colorful gardens and a picturesque town filled with charming churches and majestic castles. Writer-director Ira Sach's film probably should have been bank-rolled by Sintra's tourism committee, because the town is surely to be on the must-see travel list of every person who sees this movie. Unfortunately, what works as a travel tease, offers little else as a cinematic or entertainment vehicle.

Beloved French actress Isabelle Huppert stars as beloved French actress Francois, better known as Frankie. She has organized a vacation gathering for her modern day family consisting of her second and current husband, Scotsman Jimmy (Brendan Gleeson), her first husband, gay man Michel (Pascal Gregory), teenage granddaughter Maya (Sennia Nanua) and Maya's two quarrelling parents Ian (Ariyon Bakare) and Sylvia (Vinette Robinson), and Frankie's self-centered and problematic son Paul (Jeremie Renier). Also invited is Ilene (Marisa Tomei), Frankie's long-time friend and hair stylist, who without telling Frankie, brought along a date, cinematographer Gary (Greg Kinnear). When someone complains about her inviting Ilene, Frankie replies, think of it as "Family Plus One."

Frankie has arranged this trip under the guise of 'a final goodbye'. Her cancer has returned, and it's likely to take her life very soon. Despite that, it really appears Frankie is acting as a matchmaker for her jerky son Paul, by thinking he and the delightful Ilene might be a good fit ... you know, since she lives in New York and he's moving there. This speaks to the blindness of parents towards their own kids, but also the never-ending hope for their happiness. During this trip, we witness one of the most awkward proposals ever, plus a re-telling of a family secret at a most inopportune time. The latter is likely the most interesting segment of the movie.

Ira Sachs and his writing partner Mauricio Zacharias are known for NYC-based stories like LITTLE MEN (2016) and LOVE IS STRANGE (2014), so this idyllic setting is a bit outside their wheelhouse. We listen in on many awkward conversations, and the film involves mostly walking and talking ... with a high percentage of it being Frankie hiking on trails while wearing heels. There is an effective cloud of sadness over most every moment, and the overload of melancholy represents the struggles of this group getting through a single day. Somehow even the beautiful final shot doesn't deliver any more emotional impact than the rest of the film. There just isn't much here other than what most of us regularly experience in life ... well, other than Sintra as a setting.