This is a piece I wrote for my “Writing for Publication” class I took in senior year. This was at a point in my college career where I very lost in terms of my future and career plans (still am frankly), and that hesitancy and fear (along with having to re-train myself to be social again after many, many months of Zoom classes) reflected in my writing. This assignment was called “The Long Form Essay.” After weeks of writer’s block, I came up with my topic–an analysis of one of my favorite films, Frances Ha.
The film begins with Frances and her best friend Sophie play-fighting in a park in New York.
For me, it starts with an email saying we’ll have two weeks of spring break while the school figures out what to do during the beginning of a global pandemic.
During that first week of lockdown, I was scared, sad, and lonely. My best friend and roommate, like Sophie, had left, gone home for our two week spring break, though her and I left on good terms. Along with my singleness and not having any close friends nearby, I was miserable, like many.
With everything going on in the world at that time, I need comfort, stability, something to smile about, and most importantly, something to distract myself. One of my greatest strengths is that I can get distracted really easily, much to the dismay of my parents, elementary school teachers, and even some managers at jobs.
However, with the world as turbulent as it was (and still is), it was hard to be distracted. So, I planned to distract myself with the thing I knew would take up most of my attention: movies.
When I was younger I would hyperfixate on certain parts or aspects of movies, and let it kind of consume me until something new came along. I grew out of it years ago, but I was hoping it would come back so my mind would be occupied by something other than the state of the world and the fact I would die alone (not really, but it sure felt like it).
I wanted to find fun, light-hearted movies with happy endings, In an effort to find them, I googled “best films about girl power,” “films where the girl doesn’t fall in love with the guy,” and “best films about female friendship.” One film kept popping up on some of these lists: the 2012 film Frances Ha.
Usually, I like to watch films not at my computer desk, but the movie transfixed me so much, I ended up sitting there the whole time while I watched it, stopping only once to go to the bathroom and get a drink.
The film follows the year in the life of twenty-something Frances Halladay living in New York. She moves from apartment to apartment, job to job, losing and gaining friends along the way. That’s pretty much the premise, at least on the surface. Even though the idea was so simple, I fell in love, and since that first viewing I have seen it almost ten times. In just an hour and twenty-six minutes, I was managed to be engrossed and distracted enough to forget about the world for a little bit.
Every time I’ve seen it, I’ve always noticed something new, something different. I’ve analyzed practically every frame in that film, because that’s just what I do. And, over time, I’ve come to realize Frances isn’t just a weird and awkward character: she’s a metaphor for life.
In the beginning, we see Frances with her best friend Sophie, running around New York, dancing in parks together, riding through the subways, and spending their days in their apartment, playing games and watching TV. Already, it made me feel feelings by making me miss my roommate, and all the “best friends” I’ve had in the past.
Frances also doesn’t have a clear path in life. She wants to be a dancer but is having trouble finding gigs to pay the rent. She’s passionate but often doesn’t have a lot of initiative or is very set in her ways, as she wants to dance and not choregraph. Not only is this going on, but Sophie is moving out. She doesn’t tell Frances, which isn’t nice, but Frances assumes that they would be renewing their lease and never talked about it. This is one of the first parts of the film where there are several different ways to read this situation. There is no right or wrong way, there is no person who’s in the “right” or in the “wrong”. Adding onto that, there is no person who is the “good guy” or “bad guy;” Frances is the main character and the protagonist, but not everything she does is completely “good”.
After Sophie moves out and Frances can’t afford their old apartment, she moves in with Benji and Lev, two guys she met at a party. This is one of my favorite sections of the film to read and analyze since I really feel for Frances here.
The second time we meet Lev and Benji (the first being a party where they’re all drunk), Lev offers to show Frances his room after a very awkward date (think of the guy that talks about his expensive camera or how he met a celebrity one time…the whole night…that’s Lev). In his room, he tries to take off Frances’s clothes in an attempt to sleep with her, to which Frances makes a noise of alarm (I’ll come back to that noise later). Thankfully, Benji, Lev’s roommate, comes home to ease the awkwardness.
Frances ends up living with Benji and Lev for a spell, and Lev’s demeanor towards Frances changes. He’s no longer nice and willing to give Frances grace when she doesn’t have the rent money, he’s much more distant and is never around (unless Frances brings Sophie over, who Lev tries to woo). In my experience, when you let guys know you aren’t interested, they become aloof and withdrawn, even mean. I feel like that’s what’s happening to Lev here.
While I don’t feel like Frances is at risk in this living situation, I don’t think she feels completely comfortable. By that I mean, the relationship she has with Benji and Lev is not the same level of comfort and understanding as the one she had with Sophie. And while I know every relationship is different and no two are the same, I feel like Frances here wants Lev or Benji to be her new Sophie—that ride or die, the person she can always count on, the person who won’t judge her. There have definitely been times when we try and replicate the relationship with someone with a different person.
Benji, on the other hand, is a wannabe screenwriter who can’t seem to get anything off the ground or even get passionate about a project. Because of this, I believe that he is responsible for Frances’s artistic decline. When Frances tries to go out and run errands, Benji convinces her to stay in and watch movies. Throughout her time in their apartment, she spends most of her time watching TV with Benji and not practicing or pursuing her art; she becomes unmotivated.
Though not directly related (but could be!), Frances loses her job with the dancing company after the Christmas show she was sure would get her more money. She also has a big fight with Sophie and her boyfriend Patch, which ends with Frances storming off saying she’s going on vacation. I can’t even begin to count how many fights like that I’ve had with friends that end with lies like “I’ll be out of town,” or “I’ll be busy!”. Though the fights have never resorted to screaming, there are times when calm, carefully placed words feel like our voices are being raised. Sometimes, it’s not how things are told, but the words being said, and the meaning behind them.
Another factor in that scene that really hits home is what they are fighting about. Frances wants Sophie and Patch to be “like family,” but talks trash about him behind his back. Frances feels like she’s been replaced by Patch; the “best friend”-shaped hole in Sophie’s life was filled by her boyfriend, and Frances feels more alone than ever. When you’re young, you have these best friends, and nothing can get in the way of that bond you have. But then, someone else will come along, a lover or another friend, and that original best friend bond will be broken.
While this sounds a lot like “Oh woe is me, my friends left me for boyfriends and girlfriends and partners,” it feels like that sometimes. So, I definitely understand for Frances here. She doesn’t want to be forgotten. She doesn’t want to lose anyone.
Because she can’t pay the rent, she moves out of Benji and Lev’s place.
The next chapter of the film, the Sacramento chapter, nearly broke my heart because of how real it was. In short, Frances goes back to her hometown of Sacramento, California (the same one of Greta Gerwig, Frances’s actress and co-writer of the film) for the holidays. The majority of this section is in montage, with fast paced, happy music playing, symbolizing the joy of being home, especially for the holidays. Halfway through, slower, more somber music is heard, almost as if Frances wants time to slow down, she’s not ready to go back to her life in New York. The chapter is bookended with shots of her parents waving hello and good bye at the airport.
When you go home after being away for so long, the time spent can feel like a montage. In the moment, it can feel so slow, but when you look back you can picture the best moments. You know what they say, time flies when you’re having fun. The montage symbolizes how fast time flies when you’re home, when it’s the holidays, or when you have nothing on your mind.
During the summer of 2020, in an effort to get some money, work experience, and a taste of living on my own for longer than a few months, I took a job at my college as a custodian, cleaning dorms and making sure student houses were suitable for living in. I spent the whole summer there, until my contract went up and I had to pay for housing. Because of that, I went back to my hometown, not Sacramento but a few hours south of that. During those four weeks I was home, it sure felt like a montage.
The next chapter of the film doesn’t have a title, so I will call it “The Dinner Party.” Frances comes back to New York and rooms with one of her fellow dancers, Rachel, from the company she was formally at. Already, Frances and Rachel aren’t a good mix, and Rachel doesn’t want to play fight in Central Park. But it’s all Frances has at the moment.
They go to a dinner party (hence my naming of this chapter), and what follows is one of the most awkward scenes in all of cinema.
I’m not a fan of cringe humor; I actively avoid it when I can, and I was afraid this part of Frances Ha would be full of it. However, it was far more relatable, at least to me. Frances tries to explain what she does to Rachel’s far more successful friends, but finds it hard because, “[she] doesn’t really do it.” She tries to fit in but ultimately fails socially.
When I showed this film to my mom, who prefers actions flicks and heist movies than indie dramas and contemporary stories, she offered a perspective that I hadn’t noticed before: Frances is neurodivergent, or at least shows neurodivergent symptoms. I hadn’t seen it before, but when she told me that it was like things started to make sense. As an neurodivergent person myself, sometimes social cues in situations I’m unfamiliar in are hard to read, which can be why Frances misreads the room a couple of times and seems to say things that might not be “socially correct” during the party.
Frances’s neurodivergent coding doesn’t stop there. The noise of alarm I mentioned? It could be her way of voicing her discomfort without actually saying anything. Frances reacting strongly to Sophie leaving? Many neurodivergent people benefit from routines and rituals, and with Sophie not there it disrupts Frances’s ritual, causing her downfall.
I’ve done some digging to find more evidence of Frances’s neurodivergent coding and other analyses of it, but have sadly come up short. One article is from an autistic film critic, however it does not mention Frances’s neurodivergence. Another reviewer actually claims that Frances is autistic rather than simply being coded as neurodivergent, but seems rather hesitant to embrace that reading.
Back to the dinner party: from Frances’s perspective it seems like everyone has it all together. They have their romantic partners, jobs, even families. Frances is jobless, homeless (or rather, she has no place to call home; she is living on Rachel’s couch for the time being, but soon has to find another place to live) and practically friendless. She even finds out from someone else that Sophie is moving with her boyfriend to Tokyo after he accepts a job opportunity there, not from Sophie herself. True, they aren’t on speaking terms, but it stings nonetheless.
In the next scene, Frances gives one of the most beautiful and relatable monologues I know, but it feels so, so out of place in the film:
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.”
Who wouldn’t want that? And yet she seems to say this out of nowhere. Granted, she is drunk in this scene, and if we were to take her autistic coding into account it would make perfect sense.
I thought I had this “moment” many times. The thing is, I can never tell if it is requited. I might think it’s this moment, but the person opposite might think they’re just looking at me, nothing special to it. And that’s the thought that scares and hurts the most. I’ll think someone is the most wonderful person in my life, and they’ll think I’m just ok.
Yeah, I know. A bit of a downer. Thankfully that mindset has changed in the last few years.
At this point, Frances feels like she’s lost control. She decides to take a weekend trip to Paris, staying at the apartment of someone she met at the dinner party (you could even argue their offer wasn’t genuine), and as she’s walking back to her apartment, she runs into Benji, who has a girlfriend now. Again, another person who seems to have more of it than Frances. Going to Paris, despite the financial burden it will take, is something she has control over.
And now, Paris. Throughout the trip, Frances tries to reconnect with a college friend who moved there, while also trying to enjoy the city. Except, she overslept on her first day, like the scene in Benji and Lev’s apartment, she’s “wasted the day.”
One of the main takeaways from the Paris chapter is that time is never on your side. Frances loses the precious time she has in Paris to sleep and wandering around the city, not taking in the sites (there’s a shot that stands out to me, where her back is to the Eiffel Tower while she tries to light a cigarette). If she had stayed an extra day, she would have been able to meet up with her college friend and meet some available guys. Plus, if her meeting with the director with the company was canceled, it would have worked out. However, if she had stayed in New York that weekend, she would have been able to make it to Sophie’s going away party that night (which, personally, it wasn’t cool for Sophie to not tell Frances until the last minute. Sophie does seem to have a habit of procrastinating on telling Frances things…)
I know it feels like I’m talking in circles about a film that has a 7.5 out of 10 on IMDB. Don’t worry, we have three more sections left. Trust me, I don’t want to analyze this film too much, run it into the ground.
I’m actually going to split the third to last section into two parts: College pt. 1 and College pt. 2.
Remember how I mentioned I stayed over the summer of 2020 at my college? Yeah, during my third or fourth viewing, I really related to Frances here. Working a job she didn’t like but needed the money, and correcting people when they said she was waitressing by saying, “I just pour” (meaning, pour wine for people). Meanwhile, I was saying “I’m a custodial hospitality assistant” instead of saying I was a janitor. Feeling lonely in your dorm room every night. Thankfully, I had a roommate over the summer, but it felt like I was living alone since we never hung out and she seemed to never leave her room. The beginning scene of this section, where Frances is on the phone with her parents? Yes, I know many people call their parents, sometimes outside, but at the time it was the only place I could get privacy from said roommate.
Throughout the film, Frances mentions college, how she and Sophie met in college, her friends in college, everything. In these two sections of the film, we see Frances take up a job there when she hits rock bottom after her Paris trip. This could be another sign of her having a hard time leaving places, like when she told the dance company director the same thing earlier on in the film. She has a hard time leaving college; she has a hard time leaving her past.
In this first part, which is mostly montage, we see Frances working, trying to take classes at the college (even though she can’t because she’s an RA, and RAs aren’t supposed to take classes), and following Sophie and Patch’s Tokyo blog, which looks amazing (though, as we know now, never trust everything you read on the internet). Meanwhile, she can’t relate to her younger coworkers.
In one of the final scenes of this montage, Frances sees a crying girl in a hallway in one of the dorms and sits down to comfort her. They don’t talk, as she says, “I’m just going to sit here.” Again, this scene feels a bit out of place and forces the montage to a halt. Which is a good thing. So, what could the crying girl represent? Frances’s inner child, tired and lonely? Her spirit, after hitting rock bottom? Does it humanize Frances a bit? Does it add more evidence to Frances’s neurodivergent coding, where she really doesn’t know how to comfort her but knows she should?
Not sure.
In College pt. 2, we see Frances at the height of her pouring abilities—she must follow a donor at a party who gave a lot of money to the college, do whatever she says, and never leave her side. However, she runs into a familiar face—Sophie, with Patch. They’re back in New York from Tokyo for a funeral. Sophie, incredibly drunk, confides in Frances that she and Patch are engaged.
At the end of the night, Patch takes Sophie and Frances home. In one of the most humbling scenes in the film, when Patch drops Frances off at her dorm, Sophie tells Patch that “Frances is [her] friend and she doesn’t even like [him],” to which Frances says, “I like you.” This parallels the beginning of the film, where Frances admits she does not like him. Patch responds with “I like you too, Frances.”
Before Frances goes to bed, she gets a knock on her door from none other than Sophie, who had a fight with her fiancée. Here, we see Sophie has hit rock bottom. We see that no one truly has a perfect life, no one really has it all together.
What follows is…one of the more heartbreaking scenes in the film, maybe in all film (and I’ve seen a lot of films). The two friends have a much needed heart to heart, with Sophie being honest about her time in Tokyo. Then, Sophie says this: “I’ve always felt so competitive with you.” Frances speaks for the audience when she says, “Really? I don’t think I realized we were competitive.” She doesn’t elaborate, and then asks Frances to go to bed. Sophie is drunk, so maybe she’s saying things without a filter. Another possibility is that it’s true, Sophie feels competitive—because we only see Frances’s perspective during the whole film (according to IMDB, Frances appears in every scene in the film). We don’t know Sophie’s point of view, because we are never shown it. It’s up to the audience’s interpretation, much like a lot of things are in this film.
Obviously, the two of them sharing a bed mirrors the two of them at the beginning of the film. At one point, Sophie says, “I know it’s not my bed,” before asking Frances to take her socks of. It was her bed at the beginning of the film.
In the final scene of this chapter, it’s the next morning and Sophie gets in the car with Patch, after leaving Frances a note. Frances wakes up, looks at the note, then runs out to try and catch Sophie before she drives away for good. What was Frances going to say? What do you say when it’s the next morning and you and your best friend have poured each other’s hearts out? If Frances catches up, what then? What do you do?
The second to last part (that I am dubbing “Washington Heights,” as that’s what the final title card says), shows such a change to Frances. We see her walking, not running everywhere, like in the beginning of the film. She isn’t wearing her signature backpack or leather jacket. Her hair is down. Her armor is gone. She’s found stability in her life.
She has taken up an office job at the dance company as well as choregraphing part time there. We see her preparing for it, and then we see the actual show. Now, this might be the most obvious reading in the film, but Frances’s show is a representation of the whole movie. The different pairs and trios of people, the almost chaos that happens onstage that symbolizes Frances’s early uncertainty.
After the show, when everyone is congratulating the performers as well as Frances. And Frances has her moment, the one she mentioned in the dinner party scene. She almost doesn’t. Sophie looks at her, then when she sees she’s busy, she looks away. Then, Frances looks at her, and Sophie looks back, and they have their moment. That one moment.
One last analysis about the performance scene: it unintentionally parallels Greta Gerwig’s life, transitioning from a performing role (dancing in the film, acting in real life) to choreographing (or directing in real life).
In the last scene, which I am calling the Epilogue, we see Frances in her own apartment, by herself. She did it. And she’s so happy. When she goes to put her name in the mailbox, it doesn’t fit, so she has to adapt—hence the title, Frances Ha.
The ending made me smile, not just the bit with the name, but seeing Frances happy—and knowing that happiness can be achieved.
And just like that ending, I was able to have a slightly happy ending as well. I went back home to my parents for a few weeks before school started, then moved back into my dorm. Not only did I have my roommate from the previous year, but also one of my closest friends since high school had started rooming with us. Though school was going to be on zoom that year, it seemed like everything was gonna be okay.
The foreshadowing in this film is amazing. When Frances is telling Lev about having to move out of her and Sophie’s old place, she talks about moving to Washington Heights. At the end of the film, the final title card address says “Washington Heights.” When Frances asks Sophie to “tell her the story of them,” one of them mentions having vacation apartments in Paris. Later, Frances goes to Paris, though only for a little bit. Frances mentions she has a hard time leaving places, and you can see that everywhere: her first time at Lev and Benji’s house, when she goes to visit family for the holidays.
No, I’m not saying I’m Frances. I’m not a dancer. I don’t live in New York. And I know Frances’s life isn’t a representation of all people in their late twenties. However, it was what I needed at the time. It showed me that things do get better. Things can heal.
I love that it has a happy, hopeful ending. Mundane, but very needed and earned.
E. A. Young Writes 