Movie Review – Frances Ha
Producer: Noah Baumbach – 2012

The movie Frances Ha as a story is a love gem. If you are sensing a pattern in my current Refreshing Resources, you are correct. I am really into movies about relationships at the current moment. #mumblemetothecore. Since examples of good loving relationship were limited during my childhood, I sometimes feel as if I am scrambling to simply order a meal in a socially acceptable way. Without an example we can turn to the movies to see if there is a different way of relating.

I have been reminded today that we can let uncertainty be the leader. We don’t always have to know exactly how to be in relations with our fellow humans. We can however be open to the reality that this is the first time that this exact relationship has ever existed in history. My main uncertainty at the moment is in not knowing if drastically changing my patterns of relationship from the way my parents are within their marriage will be more fruitful in my mental wellness long term. I can see potential to do things differently in my partnership, however still have the fear of being alone. Taking it one step further, I am actually afraid of having a life without love.

Since we are on the topic of love, Greta Gerwig steals my attention with her performance in Frances Ha. After years of vindictively watching women perform on screens with little actual affection, this time it feels a little different for me. Most likely it feels different because this movie depicts a different type of love than I am used to. In some languages, like Greek, there are multiple words for describing Love. English tends to lump together terms like making love and rocking your baby. When it comes to bumping uglies, aka sex, that passionate version of the word love is related to the Greek Eros. This is the type of on screen performance that I was addicted to for many years. It was as if every time I turned on the computer I got shot in the ass with an arrow by a little naked boy named cupid. I kept searching the internet for any little indication of Eros, any little spike of erotic adrenaline. In unfortunately never found it, if you are in this cycle good luck to ya, I hope the ass arrows treat you better than they did for me.

Frances Ha depicts more of love in friendship, or philia in Greek terms. One way the psychology today website describes philia is:

“Real friends seek together to live truer, fuller lives by relating to each other authentically and teaching each other about the limitations of their beliefs and the defects in their character”

In each and every relationship throughout the movie, this is the type of love that the character Frances is seeking.

There also is an aspect of love depicted in the movie of doing something with creativity and devotion. “Meraki” in the Greek language derived from the Turkish “Merak”  is the word for this type of English plain and simple love. “For the love of the game” is a bit more mainstream movie example depicting a love for the sport of baseball. Returning our attention back to this mumblecore classic, Frances Ha depicts a love (or Meraki) for dancing. Frances devotes her full creative energies to a career as a dancer. This is a form of living with curiosity for life.

So as a Refreshing Resource, the movie Frances Ha has potential to teach us a different way of being in loving relationships. There is a little Greek philia and merki available to you out there in the world if you open up to the uncertainty and multiplicity of love.  

This post was written and edited by the human Clark Williamson. There was NO use of artificial intelligence in the making of this content. For more on our policy and views on ai, see imagorefresh.com/techpolicy