Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Too much of everything

Simply Perfect

Fantastic!

The spectacular 8 hour limited series "Feud" made me revisit many of Jessica Lange's movies. Her performance is of such perfection that it reminded me how extraordinary she has always been. "Frances" is a shock to the system, unflinchingly so. The beautiful, sad, Francs Farmer in all its contradictions. Jessica Lange is absolutely mesmerizing. The movie suffers from what most biopics suffer from, A chronological succession of events and in the case of Frances Farmer, from bad the worse to much, much worse. The movie will drain you but the performance will keep you alert, alive, transfixed. There is more, Kim Stanley as Frances mother. An acting giant with very few film credits to her name. That alone makes "Frances" a collector's item.

This biopic of Frances Farmer traces her life from outspoken teen to Hollywood starlet, followed by long periods of mental illness and barbaric treatment in institutions.Jessica Lange is magnificent as Frances; her performance is riveting and heartbreaking. Sam Shepard co-stars as her lover and Kim Stanley is excellent as her mother.It is never clearly established whether Frances was really mentally ill or just a very high-strung and hard-to-handle alcoholic. The conditions she faced in the asylum were brutal and these scenes are very unpleasant.The whole film is a treat on one hand, as the acting is flawless. The story, however, is unceasingly grim, depressing and exhausting and I won't watch it again.

1982 is such a competitive year for actresses, most prominently is Meryl Streep's critics- consensus "the all-time best female performance" and Oscar-crowning SOPHIE'S CHOICE (1982), which shamefully I haven't watched yet. Thus unfairly other contenders didn't stand any chance to beat her for that, but I never doubt that it was a nip-and-tuck between Streep and Lange in her tour-de-force sensation FRANCES. Frances Farmer is hardly a household name among film boffins, she was a shooting star in the Tinseltown, whose defiant nature is destined for hemming herself as a fair game to the studio persecution, and the inhuman therapeutic treatments she receives in the mental hospitals are fierce indictment of our society's callous depersonalization under the aegis of medical remedy, although whether the lobotomy operation was executed still lacks of conviction. Farmer exhibits her rebelliousness from the very start with her religion-defying speech "god was gone" when she was simply a high-schooler, a fearless doll under the high-handedness of her control freak mother (Stanley), Lange's rendition is begging description, an almost 30 years age-range and 140-minutes running time thoroughly proffers her an once-in-a-lifetime stretch to embody herself into this anguished persona, she minutely delineates how the life-force has been mercilessly ripped off her inch by inch and a belated and vehement face-off with her mother is the most theatrical moment and is the apotheosis of a heart-wrenching vicariousness, bravo to both Lange and Stanley! Henry York (Shepard), a fictional character as the only man who truly understands Farmer and loves her unconditionally is the narrator, this concoction is a poetic license to add some solace in Farmer's wretched life and a considerable move for its audiences' sake, but meanwhile it barely serves a slush albeit Shepard and Lange work wonder together, the make-believe default also makes no room to expound why those two lovers could not be together, an over- romanticized tone may counteract the despondency of the film but it is also an untimely reminder of how close itself could be as brave as its leading lady Jessica Lange!

A towering performance is depicted by Jessica Lange in her Oscar nominated performance for best actress in 1982. It could only take a Meryl Streep of "Sophie's Choice" to beat her out.Lange is absolutely shattering and mesmerizing as the actress who had everything and gave it all away courtesy of mental illness.There are some parallels here to the great "Ill Cry Tomorrow" of 1955. Both Lillian Roth and Jessica Lange had domineering mothers who ruined their respective lives. Both women never were suited nor wanted the life of the Hollywood jet-set.Lange does an outstanding job as a non-conformist whose tragic life can never be forgotten.The picture also depicts a very sad state of mental health in this country during the 1930s and 1940s. The institutions themselves were nothing more than factories turning out unsatisfactory human products.Kim Stanley merited her supporting nomination as Farmer's over-possessive mother. Ironically, Lange beat her out for the supporting award that same year for "Tootsie."Sam Shepherd is equally effective as the love of her life during all her trials and tribulations. Non-conformist Clifford Odets really comes off as a traitor to non-conformity.