I saw Frank with a more artistically inclined friend than I. I only came out of it more worried for what his work does to his soul. Frank is one of the better movies covering the blurred line between artistic creativity and genuine insanity by pushing the movie into very dark directions. All this happens while you try not to laugh at Michael Fassbender in a paper mache head.
The movie actually doesn’t revolve around Frank; it starts with Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) trying to write a song and failing miserably. Desperate, he goes around searching for inspiration and happens upon a van driven by a band manager named Don (Scoot McNairy). Needing a keyboard player for the night, Don offers Jon the job. Jon is then swept up in the special talents of Frank (Michael Fassbender), and joins the band sight on scene. The group head to the Irish countryside to record their album, where Jon blogs about his happenings, learns what makes Frank tick, and draws severe ire from Frank’s other collaborators Baraque (Francois Civil), Nana (Carla Azar) and Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal).
Frank is unafraid to push the weird envelope in every way. The best material in Frank involves the band isolated in that Irish cabin. The “artist” angles allows the band members to be more direct, and openly talk to Jon about their affection for mannequins, whether in conversation or in song form. The head jokes never overtake the movie, but are usually dropped in unexpectedly, the funniest involving a cigarette and a game of catch. The musical creation varies from creepy to joyful to irrational and back again. When the band hits the road to SXSW in Austin, Frank takes a turn toward the darkness of the weird. The jokes take more bite, since they are accompanied by the breaking of the band’s fragile psyche. In the last third all jokes fall by the wayside for some real succumbing to trauma and mental breaking. These lows lead to a very satisfying conclusion, earning its payoff and then some.
Frank secretly doubles as a take on the modern state of a musician. Jon uses Twitter and blogging to relay his progress, as if everything he has to say is extremely important. The traps for a band are present: follower count leads to impulsive misinformed decision making. Some band members use their follower count as an excuse to take more artistic direction. The band doesn’t even get responses from people until an insane event happens and goes viral, and one character finds another lost character using social media. Frank probably contains the first troll tweet in a movie. The big lesson here is how easily it is for a modern artist to get their sound out there and convince themselves they have more reach than they think they do. I better learn this lesson soon.
Troubled artists are juicy roles to play for any actor, and Frank is replete with several actors up to the task. Domhnall Gleeson is solid as our window into Frank’s crazy world. Gleeson successfully sells enthusiasm with a shade of narcissism under the radar. As for the band, Francois Civil and Carla Azar fulfill the self-important European quota in the band blandly. Scoot McNairy brings some strong depth to what could have been a resident weirdo. But Maggie Gyllenhaal and Michael Fassbender steal the show. Fassbender is a very striking man, and Frank has the gall to put him behind a giant paper mache head, forcing Fassbender to emote using muted sound and body language. Not surprisingly, the talented Fassbender is up to the task, nailing the pratfall humor equally as well as the complicated emotional situations without ever seeing his face. Matching him stride for stride is Gyllenhaal, who uses her face to convey a darkness mixed with despair in a very unhinged, engaging way. Gyllenhaal makes Carla a walking bipolar disorder with great effect, especially in the claustrophobic shack.
The musical landscape in cinema regarding bands is surprisingly lacking in quality. For every Hard Day’s Night, Spinal Tap, or Almost Famous, you get Jersey Boys, Rock of Ages, or some other dithering garbage times 100. Frank can stand near the top of that IMDB list, but not at the top. Paper mache wearing leading vocalists make for compelling characters, and Frank mines this for all it’s worth. As Frank does in the film, I left with a “pleasantly satisfied half smile” on my face.