Frances (1982)

Sadly Over-hyped

Good movie but grossly overrated

Fantastic!

Admirable film.

This does tell a lot about Frances Farmer. She is a woman who has been thorough hell from being a Hollywood star to being a patient in a mental institution. I have no doubt that Hollywood triggered her anxiety, including her mother Lillian who pushed her to go back to Paramount when Frances didn't want to. Seriously, she is a grown adult, she shouldn't have treated her like that. I swear to you, Frances was a really intelligent person and she was way better then the doctors,lawyers and so on who were involved in putting her into an asylum. Of course there you go with ignorance, shutting people with all kinds of problems and not trying to find solutions or goals to make that happen for the individual. Thankfully that ignorance is history even this world is still crazy today with wars!Anyways, Jessica Lange was absolutely amazing and brilliant to play Frances Farmer. It was funny to think herself and her co-star Sam Shepard who played Frances lover Harry York were an actual couple in real life. I guess it was love at first sight on set eh? I have to say, this is a great film to watch even though there is one rape scene that can be extremely uncomfortable to look at and of course, the angry outbursts were upsetting. Two hours is really worth your time and you get interested in the life of Frances Farmer regardless if you know her or not!

It's incredible that neither Jessica Lange nor Kim Stanley received the Oscar they were nominated for in this gripping film of a true story of a Hollywood actress who didn't make it because of her own over-brilliant personality, getting into conflict with everyone, having problems with adjusting to a society she couldn't agree with from the beginning; and although the film differs slightly from the true story, at large it sticks to the absolute truth at least psychologically. Jessica Lange is just formidable, and this must be her best performance. The interesting thing is that she actually very much looks like Frances Farmer, she was in reality just as beautiful as Jessica Lange if not even more, and her personality in Jessica Lange's impersonation couldn't be more convincing. Her mother Kim Stanley accomplishes a similar feat, and all the other actors tune well in to make this film as perfect a documentary biography as could be accomplished. To this comes the softening and almost seducing music of John Barry gilding the hard lines of the picture and making it more digestible, while my only objection is against the lobotomy ingredient, which is the one departure from reality. Although the terrible nightmare scenes from the asylum had to be included, since they were true, the exaggeration of the lobotomy was unnecessary. Perhaps it was just put there to end the traumatic hospital sequences.Frances Farmer became a legend, and by this film the legend was given an extra injection of continued eternity, and it's a uniquely fascinating portrait of an over-talented actress at odds with a reality, especially Hollywood at that time, that in no way was humanly acceptable.

Of course, it makes sense that Jessica lange has a certain reputation for playing the types of characters she plays. She can be extremely graceful, as she is here, bringing a certain warmth and sense of vulnerability that not many other actresses could've captured. Giving her character a real sense of victimization, so gentle and pure, and then really becoming the devil and her mental health deteriorates. It's a scary performance in many ways from Lange, who i've seen be campy and loud and over-the-top but not handle such delicate aspects of her range in this way. Very impressive work, although I'm sure it will leave many people not big fans of that type of acting.

A towering performance is depicted by Jessica Lange in her Oscar nominated performance for best actress in 1982. It could only take a Meryl Streep of "Sophie's Choice" to beat her out.Lange is absolutely shattering and mesmerizing as the actress who had everything and gave it all away courtesy of mental illness.There are some parallels here to the great "Ill Cry Tomorrow" of 1955. Both Lillian Roth and Jessica Lange had domineering mothers who ruined their respective lives. Both women never were suited nor wanted the life of the Hollywood jet-set.Lange does an outstanding job as a non-conformist whose tragic life can never be forgotten.The picture also depicts a very sad state of mental health in this country during the 1930s and 1940s. The institutions themselves were nothing more than factories turning out unsatisfactory human products.Kim Stanley merited her supporting nomination as Farmer's over-possessive mother. Ironically, Lange beat her out for the supporting award that same year for "Tootsie."Sam Shepherd is equally effective as the love of her life during all her trials and tribulations. Non-conformist Clifford Odets really comes off as a traitor to non-conformity.