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Review: Frank (2014)
This was a weird story, to say the least, but I think the story was supposed to be weird in order for the more human story line to come out. Spoilers.
Story
The interesting thing about the movie was that Jon was actually the antagonist. He admitted that his need for fame is what broke the band. The most prominent story line would be about how music was a form of self-expression and a topic of bonding for Soronprfbs, and perhaps a coping mechanism for Frank. Jon, in his obsession for fame, took that away from the band.
The story was very weird, from Frank's unwillingness to take off his head, to the band members engaging in the music in their own ways. The weirdness kept me watching because I was curious about how the story was going to develop.
The band seemed relatively stable on its own and Jon was the catalyst in terms of it breaking down in America. As we saw Jon try to steer the band towards something more mainstream, the band was becoming less stable. Of course, it just seemed like Clara's antagonism of Jon for no good reason, but it really did end up being something that broke Frank. Ultimately, Jon realized that his goals were not compatible with Soronprfbs and he had to leave for their own good.
Characters
Frank
Frank was the leader of the band. Nobody really questioned him wearing his paper mache head. We found out that Frank had actually grown up in a pretty normal home, and the head had only been made by his father as a random request. It's not discussed in detail why the head was so important to Frank, but it's clear that losing the head was a traumatic experience. He wasn't able to write music after his head broke, and could only reignite his creative spark after meeting up with his bandmates again.
Overall, I'd say that Frank was an eccentric guy who used music to express himself. It expressed his thoughts, and it was a way of bonding with his friends. In the movie, Jon tried to take that away from him, not understanding that the music was even more important to him than the head. The head was second in priority to the music. For whatever reason that even his parents couldn't figure out, the head was kind of an obsession, and armour for him, but it wasn't as important as the music. In the end, Frank lost the head, but he regained a sense of himself when he started making music again.
Jon
We see from the beginning of the movie that Jon wanted nothing more than to be in a famous band. He'd pass himself off as a hardworking songwriter, constantly tweeting at his 14 Twitter followers, etc. I was a little sympathetic to Jon from the beginning, because I think many of us have experiences instances when we want to be seen. Starting off the movie seeing Jon as a sympathetic character allowed us to see how he came to realize that he was destroying the band.
He saw the eccentricity in Frank and thought he could use that to catapult himself into fame. He couldn't get into the public eye through mainstream music, so he did it through alternative means. Unfortunately, that backfired because his followers ended up not caring about his music and only cared about making fun of Soronprfbs.
Jon had a special fascination with Frank. He wondered what it was that made him so eccentric and what about him drew people in. He assumed it was mental illness that was the cause of everything, his paper mache head, his music, and his charismatic personality. The fact is, there was no single cause. This was just the way that Frank was. Jon was probably hoping that being the frontman of a band could be so simple, just stemming from a single trait (in this case, mental illness), but of course, he learned that that wasn't possible.
When Soronprfbs got a spot in SXSW, Jon felt that he was now the leader of the band in terms of taking it to new heights and new directions. But things didn't go his way. The band didn't like his music, but at least he still had Frank, who was the frontman, and he tried to use that as a front for his own music. Frank didn't make it, and that set Jon off.
I'd say that Jon was a man who misused other people's passion to try to fuel his own dreams, and he learned his lesson at the end of the movie. It's unclear whether he'll continue to try to his dream for fame, but he's now learned that he can't use others to achieve his dream because different people have a different relationship with music.
Clara
On Wikipedia, I read that Maggie Gyllenhaal originally turned down the role because she didn't quite understand the story, but later changed her mind. I admit that right now, I'm still not sure if I'm even interpreting the story in a way that makes sense.
Clara seemed to antagonize Jon for no reason, right from the beginning. In Jon's first appearance with them, Clara got angry at Baraque for stopping in the middle of a performance. So Clara was initially portrayed to be a kind of person who took the music too seriously.
But over the course of the movie, it was clear that her attitude towards the music was because she was so protective of Frank. Clara was skeptical of Jon because he claimed to be a songwriter, but couldn't really come up with any music. So she had a feeling that he was going to take their band in a different direction other than expanding their music in the way they'd always been.
Though Clara had extreme ways of protecting Frank and Soronprfbs, it was clear that she understood the importance of its music in terms of grounding the bandmates. In the end, she reconciled with Frank after he came to see them perform at El Madrid.
Don
Don recruited Jon into the band after their keyboard player tried to drown himself. Don seemed to be the only "normal" guy that Jon could talk to, though Don also had his own issues.
Don seemed to be the only guy who grounded the group at first. He was the band manager and producer and thus was tasked with connecting the band with the outside world in a way that was healthy to the band. After Don died, Soronprfbs no longer had Don to protect them from people like Jon who wanted to use the band in other ways than to just produce music for those who enjoyed it.
Themes
Social Media
This movie was from 2014, so the use of social media was pretty updated. From the beginning of the movie, Jon was already a tryhard, trying to get his 14 followers to think of him as an interesting person. Actually, he wasn't tweeting much music at all, and was only tweeting the kind of stuff that we see with celebrities, bits about their life that make them seem #relatable.
Jon was posting recordings of Soronprfbs' recording sessions on the internet. I don't think Jon had any particular motives at first. He seemed like the type of guy who lived on the internet and thrived on feedback, so he probably just saw it as another "stuff I did today" post.
When his tweets and Youtube videos helped them get a gig at SXSW, Jon thought that his social media was the reason for their success (as opposed to the music itself). But we later saw that the followers only cared about the band's zaniness and not the actual music. This was disappointing to Jon because while he wasn't deep into the weird music like Frank or Clara, he'd still hoped to get famous by his music and not by being teased. This reminded me of Joker, which I'd watched last week, in which Arthur Fleck had wanted to be famous for being a good person, and not for his poor comedic skills.
Fame and eccentricity
Jon was obsessed with fame. He wasn't gaining any fame with his #relatable content. But when he saw the eccentricity of Soronprfbs, he felt that that was another way he could gain fame.
He also thought that the weirdness of Frank came from a single reason. In this case, he'd assumed it was mental illness, since he'd heard from Don that Frank had some mental health issues. I don't know that Jon would've wanted to become mentally ill himself, but he thought he could disect Frank and use him as his puppet for fame.
Of course, that didn't happen in the end, and Frank and Soronprfbs didn't even care about fame. Their music and eccentricity was just for themselves.
Overall
This was a weird movie with a surprisingly grounded message, that you shouldn't use others' passions for your own personal gain.
I'd recommend this film for when you're feeling bored and ready for something weird. While this isn't a favourite movie or anything, I still felt that I walked away gaining something. In this case, I gained perspective. As I mentioned, Jon had started off as a character that I was sympathetic to, so seeing how he tried to hijack Soronprfbs and how he broke Frank was pretty jarring to see. It reminded me that people do things for their own reasons, and you can't take that away from them.
Story
The interesting thing about the movie was that Jon was actually the antagonist. He admitted that his need for fame is what broke the band. The most prominent story line would be about how music was a form of self-expression and a topic of bonding for Soronprfbs, and perhaps a coping mechanism for Frank. Jon, in his obsession for fame, took that away from the band.
The story was very weird, from Frank's unwillingness to take off his head, to the band members engaging in the music in their own ways. The weirdness kept me watching because I was curious about how the story was going to develop.
The band seemed relatively stable on its own and Jon was the catalyst in terms of it breaking down in America. As we saw Jon try to steer the band towards something more mainstream, the band was becoming less stable. Of course, it just seemed like Clara's antagonism of Jon for no good reason, but it really did end up being something that broke Frank. Ultimately, Jon realized that his goals were not compatible with Soronprfbs and he had to leave for their own good.
Characters
Frank
Frank was the leader of the band. Nobody really questioned him wearing his paper mache head. We found out that Frank had actually grown up in a pretty normal home, and the head had only been made by his father as a random request. It's not discussed in detail why the head was so important to Frank, but it's clear that losing the head was a traumatic experience. He wasn't able to write music after his head broke, and could only reignite his creative spark after meeting up with his bandmates again.
Overall, I'd say that Frank was an eccentric guy who used music to express himself. It expressed his thoughts, and it was a way of bonding with his friends. In the movie, Jon tried to take that away from him, not understanding that the music was even more important to him than the head. The head was second in priority to the music. For whatever reason that even his parents couldn't figure out, the head was kind of an obsession, and armour for him, but it wasn't as important as the music. In the end, Frank lost the head, but he regained a sense of himself when he started making music again.
Jon
We see from the beginning of the movie that Jon wanted nothing more than to be in a famous band. He'd pass himself off as a hardworking songwriter, constantly tweeting at his 14 Twitter followers, etc. I was a little sympathetic to Jon from the beginning, because I think many of us have experiences instances when we want to be seen. Starting off the movie seeing Jon as a sympathetic character allowed us to see how he came to realize that he was destroying the band.
He saw the eccentricity in Frank and thought he could use that to catapult himself into fame. He couldn't get into the public eye through mainstream music, so he did it through alternative means. Unfortunately, that backfired because his followers ended up not caring about his music and only cared about making fun of Soronprfbs.
Jon had a special fascination with Frank. He wondered what it was that made him so eccentric and what about him drew people in. He assumed it was mental illness that was the cause of everything, his paper mache head, his music, and his charismatic personality. The fact is, there was no single cause. This was just the way that Frank was. Jon was probably hoping that being the frontman of a band could be so simple, just stemming from a single trait (in this case, mental illness), but of course, he learned that that wasn't possible.
When Soronprfbs got a spot in SXSW, Jon felt that he was now the leader of the band in terms of taking it to new heights and new directions. But things didn't go his way. The band didn't like his music, but at least he still had Frank, who was the frontman, and he tried to use that as a front for his own music. Frank didn't make it, and that set Jon off.
I'd say that Jon was a man who misused other people's passion to try to fuel his own dreams, and he learned his lesson at the end of the movie. It's unclear whether he'll continue to try to his dream for fame, but he's now learned that he can't use others to achieve his dream because different people have a different relationship with music.
Clara
On Wikipedia, I read that Maggie Gyllenhaal originally turned down the role because she didn't quite understand the story, but later changed her mind. I admit that right now, I'm still not sure if I'm even interpreting the story in a way that makes sense.
Clara seemed to antagonize Jon for no reason, right from the beginning. In Jon's first appearance with them, Clara got angry at Baraque for stopping in the middle of a performance. So Clara was initially portrayed to be a kind of person who took the music too seriously.
But over the course of the movie, it was clear that her attitude towards the music was because she was so protective of Frank. Clara was skeptical of Jon because he claimed to be a songwriter, but couldn't really come up with any music. So she had a feeling that he was going to take their band in a different direction other than expanding their music in the way they'd always been.
Though Clara had extreme ways of protecting Frank and Soronprfbs, it was clear that she understood the importance of its music in terms of grounding the bandmates. In the end, she reconciled with Frank after he came to see them perform at El Madrid.
Don
Don recruited Jon into the band after their keyboard player tried to drown himself. Don seemed to be the only "normal" guy that Jon could talk to, though Don also had his own issues.
Don seemed to be the only guy who grounded the group at first. He was the band manager and producer and thus was tasked with connecting the band with the outside world in a way that was healthy to the band. After Don died, Soronprfbs no longer had Don to protect them from people like Jon who wanted to use the band in other ways than to just produce music for those who enjoyed it.
Themes
Social Media
This movie was from 2014, so the use of social media was pretty updated. From the beginning of the movie, Jon was already a tryhard, trying to get his 14 followers to think of him as an interesting person. Actually, he wasn't tweeting much music at all, and was only tweeting the kind of stuff that we see with celebrities, bits about their life that make them seem #relatable.
Jon was posting recordings of Soronprfbs' recording sessions on the internet. I don't think Jon had any particular motives at first. He seemed like the type of guy who lived on the internet and thrived on feedback, so he probably just saw it as another "stuff I did today" post.
When his tweets and Youtube videos helped them get a gig at SXSW, Jon thought that his social media was the reason for their success (as opposed to the music itself). But we later saw that the followers only cared about the band's zaniness and not the actual music. This was disappointing to Jon because while he wasn't deep into the weird music like Frank or Clara, he'd still hoped to get famous by his music and not by being teased. This reminded me of Joker, which I'd watched last week, in which Arthur Fleck had wanted to be famous for being a good person, and not for his poor comedic skills.
Fame and eccentricity
Jon was obsessed with fame. He wasn't gaining any fame with his #relatable content. But when he saw the eccentricity of Soronprfbs, he felt that that was another way he could gain fame.
He also thought that the weirdness of Frank came from a single reason. In this case, he'd assumed it was mental illness, since he'd heard from Don that Frank had some mental health issues. I don't know that Jon would've wanted to become mentally ill himself, but he thought he could disect Frank and use him as his puppet for fame.
Of course, that didn't happen in the end, and Frank and Soronprfbs didn't even care about fame. Their music and eccentricity was just for themselves.
Overall
This was a weird movie with a surprisingly grounded message, that you shouldn't use others' passions for your own personal gain.
I'd recommend this film for when you're feeling bored and ready for something weird. While this isn't a favourite movie or anything, I still felt that I walked away gaining something. In this case, I gained perspective. As I mentioned, Jon had started off as a character that I was sympathetic to, so seeing how he tried to hijack Soronprfbs and how he broke Frank was pretty jarring to see. It reminded me that people do things for their own reasons, and you can't take that away from them.