Review of Frankie & Alice (2010) by Thomas W — 27 Jan 2011
Frankie and Alice was meant to be a prestige pic for its star Halle Berry (Monster's Ball, Catwoman, Swordfish) -- and it did earn her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a drama (!) -- but it feels menial and unremarkable.
Berry stars as a woman plagued with multiple personalites and Stellan Skarsgaard (Momma Mia, Good Will Hunting, Breaking the Waves) stars alongside her as her psychiatrist. This is based on a true story which sees main ego/alter, Frankie, who is a hard-drinking, mild-drugging stripper who sleeps around until she encounters her first alter ego who brandishes a knife in defense of her unknown surroundings but turns out to be a racist southern belle (she thinks she's white).
It is all rather jumbled and tawdry and poorly put together. Berry does a decent job here; but nothing more. I wasn't impressed with anything from her until the emergence of yet a third (!) alter-personality of a frightened child known as "Genius".
The camera lingers too long on some shots of Berry and I didn't believe each of the transitions between characters. Some were hardly noticable but others required Berry to overact and try to achieve some form of mild hysteria that wasn't believable.
She is an Oscar-winner; but her work has never measured up since winning. Frankie and Alice is not impressive for anything. The production looked hurried and unpolished although I appreciated the flashback scenes which I thought were the film's best .
.. oddly none of them included Berry. It's Frankie and Alice so what? I want a better movie.
This review of Frankie & Alice (2010) was written by Thomas W on 27 Jan 2011.
Frankie & Alice has generally received mixed reviews.
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