ah, frances

Although I loved children's Saturday matinées, when I got older it would have been unthinkable to see a film in the middle of the day as I associated going to the cinema with darkness: darkness inside and darkness outside. Until I found I wanted to see films no-one else did that were on while the children were at school and Simon was away. Now, every so often, I buy an 'early bird' ticket (always cheaper), disappear into a virtually empty cinema (always quieter), enjoy the film that no-one else wants to see (always easier), and emerge into daylight, blinking and taking time to adjust to the real world. (At weekends Simon comes with me, a happy convert to daytime cinema.)

This week I asked if anyone wanted to see Frances Ha. Maybe my selling technique was a little off ('it's in black and white, about a young dancer in New York, story of female friendship, the Guardian says it's good') but there were no takers, so while Simon was in Nigeria, Alice and Tom were at work, and Phoebe was in Suffolk, I took myself off to Richmond.

I was completely absorbed by the film. The black and white works fantastically well, and New York is the beautiful city of Woody Allen's Manhattan and Annie Hall. But what's really good is that this is a film dominated by a female character who is not defined by her relationships with men, a portrayal of a deep female friendship, with an absence of neurosis and introspection and sex, and a real joy in movement. Greta Gerwig is astonishingly good (and attractive in what these days is a 'daringly' natural way). I imagine Frances would irritate some people, but she manages to combine a rather endearing clumsiness (in social situations and sometimes physically) with a not-too-annoying arrested development, a gift for friendship, a gentle independence and, eventually, the ability to grow and move on. The movement thing is what Frances Ha is all about for me, how she moves through the city and through life. As one critic said, it's Frances Ha, not Frances Ha Ha. For me it's Ah, Frances.