*“I’m not messy. I’m busy.” — Frances, Frances Ha*

I went into Frances Ha (2012) expecting a simple story about a woman trying to build a life in New York, but it turned out to be much more intimate than that. Beneath the surface chaos, the film quietly captures what it feels like to be stuck between who you are and who you hope to become. At its core, the film feels like it’s saying, *“I’m doing the best I can…”,* and that idea draws in a lot of people, including me, who want to be seen.

One of the most striking formal choices is the black-and-white cinematography. It doesn’t just look beautiful; it mirrors Frances’s in-between state. The lighting and framing often make her feel slightly out of place in her own life, which fits perfectly with the film’s emotional core.

What really works is how natural the script feels. Nothing is forced. Knowing that Greta Gerwig co-wrote the film makes her performance even more impressive. She understands Frances from the inside out and brings a restless, awkward energy that carries the whole movie. The tension between Frances and Sophie is a great example of this as they clearly love each other, but life keeps pulling them in different directions, and the situation becomes more complicated than either of them expects.

I also liked how the film introduces people almost mid-stream, as if we’re catching up to Frances’s life while it’s already in motion. It adds to the sense that her world is constantly shifting, even if it occasionally creates small moments of disorientation.

By the end, what stayed with me wasn’t whether Frances “succeeded” in a conventional sense, but how she kept moving forward anyway by doing the best she could with where she was. The film understands something many coming-of-age stories miss; growth doesn’t always look clean or dramatic. Sometimes it just looks like hanging on a little longer than before.

**Rating:** I'd rate it 4.5/5. It's messy, weirdly comforting, but most importantly, honest with both the audience and itself...

Watched Frances Ha (2012) and it's messier and more honest than it looks...