Review of Frank (2014) by Mark M — 19 Nov 2014

The beauty of Frank is that every character receives ample room for character development. Wait, no, **** that. Only four of the characters are ever developed; Frank, Clara, Jon and Don. Nana (Carla Azar) and Baraque (François Civil) are left behind attempting to pick up Soronprfbs' band equipment, while the four take the band's van out for a spin. But I guess it makes sense since Carla Azar is a musician, and François Civil is just that guy whose only purpose is as a filler, like he was in As Above/So Below (2014), compared to Fassbender, Gleeson, Gyllenhaal, and McNairy, who are all top billed talents.

Despite how two out of the six main characters are sidelined by choice, Frank does what it sets out to do by its headline act of the four characters it chooses to focus on, and how the movie structures itself marvellously around the stories of said characters.

Jon is basically a try-hard musician who sees - or obsesses - over a golden opportunity that presents itself when a member of the band Soronprfbs attempts to kill himself and leaves his position open. This is obvious the second he asks a paramedic if the band member would have to remain in the hospital. What follows is how Jon's presence in the band begins to alter the natural course of how the band's ideal identity is thrown into an unnatural state that no one else In the band finds desirable, at least no one else except Frank (Michael Fassbender), who finds himself being unwittingly drawn into Jon's fame hungry schemes.

Michael Fassbender himself is amazing as the quirky vocalist of the Soronprfbs, and he wears a paper mache head of Frank Sidebottom for the almost entirety of Frank! Fassbender conveys his performance purely through a display of an eclectic performance based simply on his voice and body language, and at times, his voice doesn't even resemble his usual voice, demonstrating the different masks that Frank wears. The rest of the cast are made of Frank's highly-irritable-lover-but-not-truly-his-lover-who-the-****-knows Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Soronprfbs' morbidly depressed band manager Don (Scoot McNairy), and with all their issues - trust me, they have a lot of issues - the characters form the core of Frank, as their personal problems and character quirks are what drives the movie forward.

Though Frank might sound dark, and it does go down that particular path several times, the movie has its fair share of humour, such as Frank 'forcing' Jon to "lay an egg", quickly and successfully switching its narrative tone at the oddest of times without destroying the overall pacing or mood. Yet despite how well Frank does everything, the movie devolves into a mess in its final act which simply doesn't reach the level the rest of the film had set, or even pays off with an appropriate ending despite its buildup.

A mocking, and at times pretentious, satire of the evolution and thought process that goes into making music, Frank proves itself to be a unique gem by accomplishing everything it presents, and not withstanding its shortcomings, the movie is a joy to behold as a work of art led by a solid cast, writing and direction.