Stellar, efficient, heartfelt filmmaking. I watched this at the age of 28 and completely saw myself in Frances. The sophomoric limbo of late young adulthood is intoxicating, and apart from my current high-stress circumstances, I too am like an awkward pot of not-quite boiling water. I’m not the right temperature yet for the right tea that I want to be, and I don’t even know if I’ll ever reach it before I dehydrate.
During one segment Frances returns to her college “for a job” (read: total regression). She’s a 27-year old wearing home-made t-shirts transitioning into the life-stage of, “I just don’t understand these kids anymore” without realizing that she has nothing in common with them. She’s independent enough to comfortably buy her own cigarettes but unable to find a place to freely smoke them.
When I was in High School (private school. Limited attendance) I hung out with kids 2 grades higher than me. We stayed friends when they went to college, and since they stayed connected to the school in some ways, we would have fun going to school events. Our favorite was the school play for ubiquitous reason: it’s often silly, compelling, and charming. We did this every year we could, and we always had a fun time.
I graduated in 2014, and in either 2015 or 2016 I recall inviting those same friends to go see the school play. What was 1-2 years out of high school for me has been about 4-5 for them. We had joked about going but for some reason I seemed to think it was serious, and I even scheduled to have time to see the play. It wasn’t until the day of that I realized that the topic has been ghosted for nearly a week. Hours before I would have had to start driving to my old High School, I realized I was too old to be going back, and if I was too old, they were ancient. I had also realized I wouldn’t have recognized a single person in the play, as I largely hung out with people either grades above me or my peer group, but never below me. I stayed home.
I’m very accustomed to the already-but-not-yet nature of change, and not in the Paul David Tripp eschatological way. I mean that stage of perpetual change where-in the change is painfully present. The lowest part of the curve, or even highest. it’s that part where the momentum of change is so strong you could pass out. The G-Forces whip you around so swiftly that everything you thought was a foundation was actually nothing at all. I wasn’t always at private school, in fact I had been at public school during middle school and I transitioned into private for High School. During that Summer I played nothing but Left 4 Dead 2 on my Xbox 360 because I figured I was going to have to make new friends anyway, so I’ll just leave my old friends cold turkey.
The combination of Frances’ fear of change alongside this yearning nostalgic sickness resonated so deeply with my near-entire life story. I continue to have these grotesquely painful periods of harsh self-awareness and deep isolation. I’m a man of few securities, learnt in the sense of self-preservation and often exercising all my options before moving forward, including going backward. But nobody can go backward, and nobody stays the same. Everything is in perpetual motion, a constant state of change and transition. A truth present in God’s character, as He Himself is an immovable God, a being of perpetual confidence and stability. His foundation is Himself, and His presence is Unchanging. Who counsels God? Who leads Him?
I wish when things were good they could stay good, or that at the very least when things were pleasant that I could experience such pleasantries until I was full. But often I’m filled with such an emptiness and an uncomfortably. Just as I feel I’ve settled, I realize I was about to hit the apex again and begin the curve all over.
Frances Ha works as a captured moment in time, a movie whose color is in its character, both the atmosphere of character and it’s lead struggling-to-be-a-human character, and whose criticism of black-and-white living is stark against the dripping nuance of everyday living. It’s filled to the brim with worthwhile discussion and influence, and the way it evokes memory and misery is quite, simple, and gut-punching. Life is often about the moments it gives, and I appreciate the profile it gives in Frances. Thanks to the wonderful beauty of film, you’re privy to the little shining moments of love and life she has, and I hope we can often step back to witness those moments, too. And also to move not only with a step, but a skip, jump, and a dancing twirl, too.
But I also hope I can find an endurance amidst the eternal crisis of identity. Even if I am a man who changes, and a man who inevitably becomes something else somewhere else, may I at least be a pleasant presence to those around me and myself. Because often I find that during these times of transition I am greatly disturbed by circumstance, leaving myself to believe I am to be disturbed by the self. Hopefully through brief respite and a moment of rest I can have the courage to be wise, embrace the change, and mature toward a healthier, brighter, friendlier, and more hopeful future. Maybe I should search in Paris.
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