I was terrified that this wouldn’t hold up. Instead I find it as breathtaking as I ever did, maybe even more so. I had forgotten how funny, and sweet, and gentle this is. That gentleness is what I love most about it, what it’s really “about,” and why I think it still feels fresh and startling and vulnerable decades later.
This was one of those formative movies for me, expressing something that felt so true to my understanding of sex…
More later, but
1) I did not realize this would be such a transcendent statement on the very nature of film. It’s so fucking beautiful, I cannot get its melancholic images out of my mind… the American West of mythic movie and imagination and pain and brutality, the absolute art of those bright flowing colors against a dusty landscape, the composition of every shot and the undeniable love and reverence for the very act of composing that underscores the whole…
“We gave you all of these ideas, and then you go off and you make Weird Frances Ha, you know? It’s just not useful at all.”
I have no idea how to rate this, and cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone. Spent the first half thinking, “I can’t believe I paid money for this,” but by the end, maybe I love it? Weird, extremely dry, deadpan humor and self-aware art. There are some absolutely killer satirical lines, but…
It pains me to say it, but this is much, much better than I remember.
I do have some quibbles, and it’s far from my dream film. It’s bittersweet and often disappointing. But so is life? It’s not a sweet sapphic romance, but (again it pains me to say it) it’s kind of ahead of its time for how it flirts with relationship anarchy and fluid sexuality. That was hard to swallow when I was in college— I didn’t want…
