Frankie
Directed by: Ira Sachs
Written by: Ira Sachs & Mauricio Zacharias
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Jérémie Renier, Pascal Greggory, Vinette Robinson, Ariyon Bakare, Sennia Nanua, Carloto Cotta
Drama - 98 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 28 Oct 2019
Written by: Ira Sachs & Mauricio Zacharias
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Jérémie Renier, Pascal Greggory, Vinette Robinson, Ariyon Bakare, Sennia Nanua, Carloto Cotta
Drama - 98 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 28 Oct 2019
Writer/director Ira Sachs exchanges his claustrophobic New York City settings and its cutthroat real estate market which provoked his previous two films for an out in the open relic of a bygone era, Sintra, Portugal. Sachs maintains his most favored pastime though - rolling around in complicated family dynamics. The only thing his new indie soap opera has going for it is its deliberately slow revelations of how the family puzzle pieces fit together. Figuring out who is related to whom, how, and what they feel about one another is a sneaky trick Sachs pokes the audience with; for otherwise, watching married couples fall out of love, children consider inheritance, and a fumbling attempt at matchmaking would come off as riveting as it sounds.
Frankie (Isabelle Huppert, Louder Than Bombs) is ill enough to decide she will refuse further treatment and warn her family to prepare for her encroaching end. She doesn’t look too sick, she even takes a morning swim and can hike up a mountain. But there was a dizzy spell in there, so she must be on the precipice. Her children talk of wills, lawyers, and trusts, while her husband (Brendan Gleeson, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) suffers from crying spells. As a world famous actress, Frankie turns heads around the hotel and connected tourist trap, but to her most non-nuclear family, which includes her ex-husband and a step-granddaughter, she is the ruling matriarch able to convene everyone in an out of the way locale and ensure the least amount of time is actually spent rehashing nostalgic memories or discussing the ins and out of the immediate future. Frankie is far too meandering with all things inconsequential to focus on anything one could call pragmatic.
Frankie (Isabelle Huppert, Louder Than Bombs) is ill enough to decide she will refuse further treatment and warn her family to prepare for her encroaching end. She doesn’t look too sick, she even takes a morning swim and can hike up a mountain. But there was a dizzy spell in there, so she must be on the precipice. Her children talk of wills, lawyers, and trusts, while her husband (Brendan Gleeson, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) suffers from crying spells. As a world famous actress, Frankie turns heads around the hotel and connected tourist trap, but to her most non-nuclear family, which includes her ex-husband and a step-granddaughter, she is the ruling matriarch able to convene everyone in an out of the way locale and ensure the least amount of time is actually spent rehashing nostalgic memories or discussing the ins and out of the immediate future. Frankie is far too meandering with all things inconsequential to focus on anything one could call pragmatic.
Even though the grand dame is about to be written out of the story, the family’s separate and intersecting lives continue to weave their webs. Frankie's son cannot stop thinking about how to dodge inheritance taxes and there is a step-daughter far more preoccupied with the London rental market as she ponders leaving her husband. She says she doesn't know if she will walk away from the marriage, but anyone already apartment hunting has made up their mind. Even the local tour guide chews his cheek on why he continues to stay married. Nobody could find happiness with the amount of introspection afflicting everyone on this Portuguese mountain. Frankie flicks at a side narrative when she invites dear friend Ilene (Marisa Tomei, Spider-Man: Far From Home) to join the gathering, but does so hoping Ilene and her son hit it off. Oops - Ilene shows up with a boyfriend fiddling with an engagement ring in his pocket. If this were Woody Allen, this little gimmick would provide a knowing nod to the oncoming misunderstandings and farce.
However, Sachs is too fond of his exceptionally long takes and pages of dialogue for any farce to work. Huppert and Tomei, Tomei and Greg Kinnear, Gleeson and Huppert, Kinnear and Huppert, and on and on, each get their one-on-one featurettes and none of it achieves any dramatic heights or reveals any acting master classes - well, maybe Gleeson. It’s more plodding stage play too worried anything which may be mistaken for theatrics is left off stage. Someone throws a bracelet once and you would think a gunshot went off. Directors incur critical wrath for going over-the-top and failing to reign it all in, but Frankie could use a quality melodramatic wail or even a sniffle. The endless conversations of everyone talking about everything but death is drier than the film’s worst sub-plot of Frankie’s granddaughter going to the beach and kissing a boy.
Sachs says Frankie shows life’s different stages - first kiss, first divorce, and death, but none of it sticks. Portugal is more refreshing than Brooklyn to watch folks walk around talking about nothing in particular, but stories can be just as boring in beautiful settings than in more familiar urban centers. Sachs brings back Tomei from Love is Strange and Kinnear from Little Men, but his success pulling off effective family dramatics back then gets lost in this large cast as everyone keeps poking their noses in for some more screen time to Hamlet on about what their feelings tell them they must do. Somebody has a go at Frankie with, “You think you can manipulate everything don’t you?” The audience wishes she could. Maybe then a character may be manipulated into saying something interesting or even daring to mention the elephant in the room. Frankie is dying - perhaps a character or two may want to talk to her about that.
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