FRANCES HA!. “You seem older — but less like a grown-up.”

“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 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 what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess. Love" -Frances Ha ....................................... Frances Ha! was so damn real, honest and beautiful, i totally loved it. Frances played by Greta Gerwig is a 27 year old trying to find answers in life, yes she is a bit of a dreamer, quite sloppy, messy. immature but highly real character. She is flawed, funny, someone quite comfortable with mistakes or at least she is not the kind of person who sees them as the end of the world and even when she says she is tired all the time, she has quite a few dreams. She is not a professional dancer but she loves to dance, she wants to travel, know Paris, learn French and read Proust. Sounds exhausting for a "tired person", right?
I couldn´t help but think of Woody Allen´s Manhattan with the whole black and white format and with the dialogues being the "main character" in the movie. I´d say it´s as if Woody Allen met Lena Dunham on the NY subway and exchanged notes with her. And Greta Gerwig is simply brilliant, fresh and believable. I´ve seen her a few times before and i must say she reminds me of Diane Keaton back in the days. Who knows if she slowly becomes "The Diane Keaton" of my generation?
I´ve read she even has a cat named "Diane Keeten". How lovely is that? Anyway, back to the movie... To me Frances Ha! is an ode to life, at times it was too real, too frustrating, too familiar, too engaging, too sincere but mainly, and that is why i loved it the most, it was no fairytale at all. The movie shows that no matter how fucked up life can turn out sometimes, in the end we do not have to give up and we have to do what our hearts speak. Life might lack so many things but it has so many others, cause guess what? it goes on no matter what. It doesn´t wait for you. You wanna dance even if you can´t keep up the pace? do it! you get the chance to go to Paris even when you´re broke? do it! later, you´ll figure out how to pay your credit card. There´s only one life and we should learn how to live it with less guilt or insecurities, enjoying every minute. You see, Frances is barely a heroine and i loved the fact that she is trying to find herself, not a man or something unachievable. Don´t get me wrong, i am a helpless hopeless romantic and i love romantic comedies but i liked that this one did not need a prince charming to tell the tale, a love story is not the main topic in this movie. Yes, Frances obviously wants to find love as much as the next girl, fall in love with someone and feel the magic but there´s a different kind of romance here. I know most people saw an awkward "love story" between two old friends, the movie shows us the importance of having a girlfriend in your life (eventhough her relationship with her friend Sophie might be a little bit too intense for my taste) but i saw something else. To me, Frances is romancing life, she wants to make love to the life she wants to have first. Her love story is with life itself. So, this is another movie that i highly recommend. Frances Ha! is lovely, simple and definitely worth watching. Remember the famous "half full glass"? Well, picture this movie and life as THAT half, drink it and just get drunk on it all the way!
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