Movie reflection: Frances Ha

What can I say? I did not think I would enjoy this film, but I really did. My sister kept urging me to watch it and when I finally did, I couldn’t help but relate to Frances in more than a few ways. You see, Frances is finding her way through life – navigating friendships and seeking out her place in life as an adult, especially as she’s realizing she may not be the ideal and perfect dancer the world of dance demands that she should be if she were to be considered “successful”.

I won’t really talk about the plot and the overview of the film here as all that information is easily retrieved from the internet (a film by Noah Baumbach, starring Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver). Rather, some points of reflection as I relate it to a mature-age HDR student. What would success look like for a Ph.D. graduate? Would it be through being awarded a postgraduate position? Is it working in the academic world? Would working in industry be seen as a failure?

What about friendships? What makes a friendship a success – is it measured through the number of years of friendship? Or is it through the quality and the impact that friendship has made in one’s life? Do we have to keep all the friends we make? Or are there friends who are meant to be in our lives for only a short moment in time? The ones who are there in the trenches as you’re going through the chaotic moments of a particular period of your life. Do we outgrow friends?

“It’s that thing when you’re with someone and you love them and they know it and they love you and you know it but it’s a party and you’re both talking to other people and you’re laughing and shining and you look across the room and catch each other’s eyes. But not because you’re possessive, or it’s precisely sexual, but because that is your person in this life and it’s funny and sad but only because this life will end and it’s this secret world that exists right there. In public. Unnoticed. That no one else knows about. It’s sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us but we don’t have the ability to perceive them. That’s what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess.” – Frances

At the end of the day, life is filled with moments and before we know it, the years fly by. The moments are what sustain us, what we treasure, and what we look back and remember as we grow.