Frances Ferguson

Hats off to this team who was unafraid to explore some hard topics, then to not back away from the controversy that has found its way into the media in the past couple of years. With an incredibly sharp script, an amazing lead performance, and lots of familiar faces (and voices) popping up throughout, it's a fun ride and always keeps you thinking about the way we and the people around us carry public perception.

I saw this movie at the SXSW film festival when it premiered, I liked it, the movie is offbeat but settled into a kind of funny rhythm that it maintained. It's about a teacher having an affair with a student. It was a cast and crew screening so there were people laughing at everything which I hate. I wanted the movie to keep going but it was also daylight savings time and I was kind of out of it.

Mordaciously hilarious study of smallish town, cornhusker housewife turned scarlet-lettered jailbird. Blame it on ennui. I wish I had a teacher like Frances Ferguson during my high school years, instead I had wizened nuns with bad spanking habits and a bald, pasty man with disturbingly hirsute hands. If she were the teach, I'd have really boned up on my homework assignments. Yeah, so I gained a sort of retroactive, vicarious thrill watching this. The wacky, deadpan narration (except for the odd time when he cracks himself up) by Offerman is a real treat, as is the fine acting by Kaley Wheless. The latter is a fetching, refreshing cross between Taylor Schilling and a less uptight Charlize Theron. Cool cameo by the great Martin Starr helps to perk up the last quarter of the film. This is the part of the film that sort of loses its luster and fizzles out a bit. It gets a little too North Platte-tudinous. You could do a helluva lot worse with your indie film viewing choices.

I'm not familiar with the director or writer, but I hope to see a great deal more of lead actress Kaley Wheless in the future. Her facial expressions speak volumes, and she manages to telegraph a whole attitude with one angry, simmering glance. Her character is nihilistic and beyond caring. I feel like there could definitely be a backstory, but then it's already clear where her life had gone. How she decides to deal with it is what the film is about. Funny, and certainly worth a watch.

I've always imagined that I could be a writer. I know I can't write. But if I could be a writer I would write a short story that starts with a word and by the end of the story the definition of the word has been changed. Better yet I'd be a poet writing a poem accomplishing a similar transformation.

Frances Ferguson accomplishes this transformation. This is not a comedy it is a heavy lift by people who can do comedy but choose to lift something that otherwise stinks. Sex offense. For the film epicurean this is no problem. ( As long as it want't written by a priest or a convicted sex offender seeking vindication.)

Don't let your spouse (or friends) catch you watching Frances Ferguson or you're gonna have a look on your face like George Costanza being caught eating a chocolate eclair out of the kitchen trash can at your friends party. 5 stars for script writing balls. A movie gem that makes the continuing hunt worthwhile. If I didn't do my homework and I'm wrong about the intent of the writer, I've been had. After all the only skill needed to write a movie review is the ability to hit keys on a keyboard.