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Frank Movie Review

Frank is a 2014 independent black comedy film directed by Lenny Abrahamson and starring Domhnall Gleeson and Michael Fassbender. It’s a silly and odd, but somewhat memorable movie.

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“You are a mediocre child“

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Jon, an amateur musician, is elated when the enigmatic Frank, whose head is always masked, asks him to join his band. But Clara, another band member, hates him and is too possessive of Frank. This is a very strange indie flick that is basically a comedy, but its brand of humor is quite offbeat and not always working, though a couple of scenes did make me chuckle a bit.

Frank is a music movie, which is always a mixed bag for me. The music that we get to hear in this film is quite mediocre and annoying, which soured my enjoyment of the entire flick significantly. The scenes with the band were the weakest for sure.

Whenever the film focused on character development and humor instead of creating music, it was better and more impactful. The characters themselves are also too quirky and weird for their own sake. I admittedly found Domhnall Gleeson very good and perfectly cast, but others were inferior to him and quite weakly developed. Maggie Gyllenhaal has some solid moments, but Michael Fassbender was so mistreated here. Why would you cast freaking Fassbender and cover him with a silly mask throughout? This made no sense to me.

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Frank was directed by Lenny Abrahamson and this came out before his masterful ‘Room’, which just makes this effort all the more pedestrian in comparison to that incredible film. The ending is quite mediocre and the entire second half is weaker than the admittedly solid first one. The technical aspects are just serviceable. The flick has a heart undeniably and its own charm, but it was ultimately too weird and slight in plot to make a bigger impact. I liked it more the second time around, but this is still not my cup of tea.