FRANKIE 10/27/19

Isabelle Huppert as Frankie

Ira Sach’s new film FRANKIE features the great French actress, a frail Isabelle Huppert who is dying and has summoned her family and a good friend to join her in the wealthy resort town of Sintra, Portugal, whose diverse landscape straddles airless, dense green foliage, stepped-up hills with wide vistas allowing us to voyeuristically watch life below - desultory marionettes interacting with one another like mysterious silhouettes, and the breadth and expanse of the Atlantic Ocean where the panoramic scenery is infinite as are the possibilities. Sachs sweeping terrain is a major character in the film echoing the twists and turns of interpersonal relationships.

The movie begins with Frankie’s family and her good friend Ilene (Marisa Tomei) having traveled from divergent locations arriving in Sintra along with tourists who will partake of the rich history of the town. We focus in on the always wonderful actor - a hulking Brendon Gleeson who plays Frankie’s adoring husband Jimmy, slowly walking up steep steps - occasionally stopping to rest and drink from the water cupped in his hands to quench his physical and psychic pain quashing the knowledge that loss is imminent. We first meet Francoise Cremont, nicknamed Frankie (Isabelle Huppert), seemingly strong and healthy swimming topless in a clear blue pool amidst luxuriant surroundings. As she alights from the pool we are able to see her smallish, frangible body - a beautiful woman who can be both commanding and fragile.  The strength of their marriage is evident in a scene where we witness them passionately making love - his large torso cradling her thin figure - the intertwining forms breathtakingly stunning to behold. 

Brendon Gleeson and Isabelle Huppert

Frankie’s first husband Michel who we see with binoculars observing others from afar is a “survivor” of his relationship with Huppert. An intimate moment in the film occurs when both husbands talk and Michel reveals that the ending of his marriage to Frankie was a porthole to a more truthful life; the opportunity to come out and admit that he was gay.  Michel is also the father of Frankie’s beloved son Paul who cannot sustain a relationship with a woman. Frankie who usually gets what she wants- making plans for others - would like to see her best friend Ilene hookup with her son. The only problem being that Ilene has brought a boyfriend Gary along on the trip. 

Isabelle Huppert and Marisa Tomei

Jimmy’s daughter Maya played by Vinette Robinson  (Frankie’s step-daughter) her husband Ian (Ariyon Bakare) and her rebellious teenage daughter Sylvia - a lovely Sennia Nanua - angry and frightened by the antagonistic tension she senses between her parents are also part of the cortege. There is a beautiful vignette of a thin, long-legged child-woman Sylvia going off by herself to the beach on a bus where she meets a young man and we are witness to the tender seductiveness of permeated innocence. There is a magical trust that we experience when we are young that is hard to rekindle with future connections.

Sennia Nanua

There is an intimacy to this film that is exquisitely delicate - the cinematography, the writing and even the long wavering shots of the surroundings have a light touch like a passing caress. Many of the scenes with Huppert involve long solitary walks where we sense the strength of her will but at the same time the weakness of her frame - cancer has taken its toll and now is the time to say goodbyes. Yet Frankie somewhat believes that she can arrange life after death - make liaisons, clean up the loose ends, etc. But life is ephemeral and the last scene in the movie is illuminating, sublimely acted by Huppert, where you can see on her face that she realizes that “the living” akin to the Universe keeps on spinning  - with or without your direction creating surprises that bump up against your considered expectations.