Frankie

I can see many negative reviews and can easily understand why. It is not a fun movie. However It interested me quite a lot because it explores many obscure corners in one's life. This is somehow balanced with a beautiful site. I have not been to Portugal but did enjoy 'being there' for the duration on this story.

It was nice to see Brendan Gleeson whom I did not expect to see in a semi French story... Perhaps you'll appreciate this movie as well.

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.

As a Portuguese movie buff it delights me to no end to have such an incredible cast work in my home country. It really is a fantastic ensemble from very different parts of the world and from different eras and acting schools. You can imagine how disappointed I was when I finally got to see the movie. A very slow, soulless piece, with very little energy and absolutely no interest. And the biggest sin was that Ira Sachs gave all this wonderful and accomplished actors absolutely nothing to work from. Not even the beautiful imagery of Sintra could save this. What a shame and a wasted opportunity.

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.

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.