Review: Frank
Mashing up genres to disjointed but not displeasing effect, Frank can be viewed as a cinematic concept album. By turns abstract, solipsistic, weird and wonderful, it draws you in as much as it pulls you back. As one character advises, "You're just going to have to go with this."
This is Frank (Michael Fassbender) who hides in plain sight beneath a papier-mâché head. The enigmatic leader of The Soronprfbs (don't worry, even the band members don't know how to pronounce it), he becomes a source of inspiration for struggling songwriter Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) who accidentally becomes a member of the band when its keyboardist tries to drown himself. Soon Jon finds himself sequested in a secluded lakeside cabin with the rest of The Soronprfbs as they attempt to record their latest album.
During this time, Frank operates as both an extended peek into the creative process, which is both inspiration and perspiration (Frank won't record until every detail is perfect), and a thoughtful meditation on the perennial theme of art versus commerce. Jon wants his work to be heard, to be known - he's already promoting himself via Twitter despite his repeated failings to produce any actual songs - but Frank and the band seem content to remain in a bubble of creation. Certainly Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the ferociously hostile theremin player, could care less if their music is liked.
Yet does being liked devalue the work? Does the level of struggle make the work any better? Jon envies Frank's history of mental illness and suffering, but you've got to wonder if making that thin line between inspiration and insanity your creative playground is a misguided motivation. Here Frank is almost like a horror film - why do the band's keyboardists keep trying to kill themselves? - or a fractured fairy tale of an innocent taken in by a dark figure and his eccentric caretakers.
As the film heads into its final act, it become increasingly apparent that the innocent is a rather insidious influence. The smile that tugged at the corners of Jon's mouth when the paramedics confirm the keyboardist would not make that night's performance may have been funny at the beginning of the film; upon reflection, it hints at the darker passages to come.
Loosely inspired by Frank Sidebottom, the alter ego of comedian Chris Sievey, director Lenny Abrahamson and screenwriters Peter Straughan and Jon Ronson (who played in Sidebottom's Oh Blimey Big Band as a substitute keyboard player in college) collaborate to produce a work that is as anarchic and silly and not for all tastes as its source inspiration. This is a film that very much beats to its own particular rhythm and will reward and exasperate you even if you give yourself over to it.
Abrahamson's assured direction and deadpan stylings are well supported by his troupe of actors. Scoot McNairy is fine as the band's burnt-out manager, himself with a history of mental instability and a penchant for mannequins. Gleeson anchors the film, slowly shading the character during the course of the film.
Gyllenhaal is simply a wonder, prowling about like some perturbed panther. Prone to vituperative outbursts, her Clara is distrustful of Jon and rightly so. Watch the triumphant smile as Jon is unable to perform one of his works for the band; she sees him for the talentless opportunist that he is and she wants him to know it. "You are fingers being told what to push. Ten little bits of bone and skin." In a later scene, the word "disgusting" drips from her mouth as if sated from a kill.
Fassbender is sublime, using his physicality to convey the melancholy soul behind the expressionless face he presents to the world. His final performance of the oddly rousing "I Love You All" to Clara and the band may be one of the quietest romantic moments in recent memory as well as a moving moment of a man reaching through his mental illness to communicate.
Frank
Directed by: Lenny Abrahamson
Written by: Jon Ronson, Peter Straughan
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Scoot McNairy, François Civil, Carla Azar
