Analysis: Frances Ha

Frances Ha is a 2012 comedy-drama film directed by Noah Baumbach and writing by him and Greta
Gerwig, who is also playing the title role. Its a story that follows Frances, a twenty-seven year old
woman (or girl?) who lives in New York, although she does not have her own apartment. Her financial
situation makes her stay at her friends apartments. She is failing to make it as a dancer and she
describes herself as undateable. Meanwhile, she is helplessly watching as her best friend Sophie
goes off and finds a man, and putting their closer-than-close relationship (Were the same person with
different hair) on the rocks.
Frances is not exactly a child at the start of this film, but she is definitely very childlike. She finds
herself unable to escape from the past. Over the course of the film, Frances learns to sort out her life.
In my opinion, Frances is experiencing the development from youth to adulthood, which Is called
coming of age. But normally, people experience the coming of age phase from their late teens until
their early- or mid-twenties (Jensen Arnett, 2006), and not when their twenty-seven. Thats why Im
asking the following question with this film: Is Frances Ha about coming of age?
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett wrote Emerging Adults in America Coming of Age in the 21st Century.
According to him, emerging adulthood has five main features that make emerging adulthood distinct
as a developmental period from the adolescence that precedes it or the young adulthood that follows
it. These are the five features:
1. The age of identity explorations
2. The age of instability
3. The self-focused age
4. The age of feeling in-between
5. The age of possibilities
These features are based on his research with emerging adults over the past decade. He describes
the features in the first chapter of this theory: Emerging Adulthood: Understanding the New Way of
Coming of Age. In response to this chapter, Im going to explain the five features and explore if
Frances Ha is in fact about emerging adulthood, while Frances doesnt necessarily has an age for it.

1. The age of identity explorations

Emerging adulthood is the age of identity explorations in the sense that it is the period when people
are most likely to be exploring various possibilities for their lives. This counts for a variety of areas,
especially love and work, as a prelude to making the enduring choices that will set the foundation for
their adult lives. Emerging adults clarify their identities: they learn more about who they are and what
they want out of life. Emerging adulthood offers the best opportunity for such self-exploration.
Emerging adults have become more independent of their parents than they were as adolescents and
most of them have left home, but they have not yet entered the stable, enduring commitments typical
of adult life, for example a long-term job or marriage. In this phase, they have an opportunity to try out
different ways of living and different possible choices in love and work. (Jensen Arnett, 2006)
In the beginning of the film, Frances is at her boyfriend Dans apartment. He asks if she wants to move
in with him. Frances says she wants to, but cant and feels bad for it, because she still has three
months on the lease with Sophie. Sophie and Frances are best friends who live to together. Frances
says that she thinks Sophie would be mad if she broke the lease, because they will probably sign
another lease when this one is finished. It seems that its too early for Frances to take these steps, to
move in with Dan, and shes using Sophie and their apartment as an excuse. I think Frances actually
rather lives with Sophie. And I think Dan got that feeling too, because then he says that their
relationship has not been working for a while. Frances asks if they are breaking up, while Dan wasnt
thinking like that. He said no, because he wants to live with her. But because they are on completely
different pages, they break up later that night. Its clear Frances doesnt know what she wants in love.
She had a pretty serious relationship but couldnt take further steps. She knows now she doesnt want
to stay with Dan, and tries to focus on her friend Sophie and her work at the dance company.
Frances is pretty much broke. She tries to work a lot at the dance company as a teacher, but because
she cant work as much as she wants to. Earlier in the film, Sophie moves in with another girl, which
means Frances doesnt have a home because she cant pay rent alone. During the film, Frances has
stayed with certain friends and other people she knows. Shes not sure if she can grow in this dance
company, but dancing is what she wants to do so she keeps working there. To earn a little bit more
money, shes working at the college where she went. Shes just pouring wine in peoples glasses,
where I think she realises its pretty sad. Frances knows what she wants: dancing. But she isnt really
doing much about it, shes sticking with this dance company.

2. The age of instability

The explorations of emerging adulthood make it not only a stimulating and eventful period of life, but
also an unstable one. The residential changes in the US peak during emerging adulthood (late teens
early twenties). That illustrates the instability of the age period. Emerging adults numerous moves
reflect their explorations of different possibilities and their frequent changes of direction with respect to
love, work and education. (Jensen Arnett, 2006)
Its true, Frances is moving a lot during the film. But its not especially because of possibilities, but
because she has to. In het beginning of the film, she has moved out of her parents house a while ago.
She lived with her best friend Sophie. But when Sophie is moving out, Frances is on her own. Because
she cant pay rent alone, she has to stay with other people. Shes moving from her apartment with
Sophie to Benji and Levs apartment, two guys she trough Sophie. But because Frances has to pay
over a thousand dollars rent a month, she cant stay there for long. She is not making enough money
at that moment. So shes going to her parents in Sacramento for a few days, where she tells her
parents everything is good. When shes back in New York, shes staying at a friend who she knows
from the dancing company.
In a way, Frances is experiencing the age of instability, but its all because of her money problems.
Shes not moving for herself because of another job or something, shes moving because she cant
stay at her friends apartments for free too long.

3. The self-focused age

Emerging adults are not selfish or self-centered. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett has interviewed both
adolescents and emerging adults in various studies, and he was struck by how much less egocentric
emerging adults are, compared with adolescents. Emerging adults are more considerate of other
peoples feelings and better at understanding others point of view. Emerging adulthood is a distinctly
self-focused time of life, which is different than being self-centered. Emerging adults are self-focused
in the sense that they have little in the way of social obligations, little in the way of duties and
commitments to others, which leaves them with a great deal of autonomy in running their own lives.
Being self-focused is fun and serious at the same time. This period is the time in their lives when they
dont have to answer to anyone and can essentially do what they want with their lives, before they
enter the permanent or enduring obligations of adult roles. But theres also the goal of attaining the
self-sufficiency that is at the heart of their view of what it means to be an adult. Identity issues are
relevant here: being self-focused allows emerging adults the psychological space to contemplate the
who am I? question, regarding to opportunities in love, work and education. (Jensen Arnett, 2006)
The who am I question is a great deal for Frances. She broke up with her boyfriend in the beginning
of the film. A dinner with Lev further in the film looks like a date, but it isnt. She is dreaming about love
though. At a dinner with people she barely knows, she starts babbling about love. It's that thing when
you're with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it... but it's
a party... and you're both talking to other people, and you're laughing and shining... and you look
across the room and catch each other's eyes... but - but not because you're possessive, or it's
precisely sexual... but because... that is your person in this life. And it's funny and sad, but only
because this life will end, and it's this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no
one else knows about. It's sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we
don't have the ability to perceive them. That's - That's what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I
guess.
Frances is kind of losing her best friend Sophie during the film. She knows she wants to be and keep
being friends with Sophie, but shes not sure Sophie feels the same way. She keeps trying to reach
her and to talk to her, because Sophie is really important to Frances. And at work, Frances wants to
dance and teach more, but the opportunities arent there. She knows what she wants to do, but shes
not actually looking for more work in this area. It may look like shes lazy, because she needs money
but shes not doing really much about it, but I think shes figuring out what she really wants to do. And I
guess that, If you dont know for sure, its hard to be motivated for something you dont really want to
do.

4. The age of feeing in-between

One of the questions Jeffrey Jensen Arnett has asked during the research is: Do you feel that you
have reached adulthood? He has found that a large group of people under the age of 35 feels inbetween adolescence and adulthood. The feeling of being fully adult takes a long time to attain. The
explanation for this phenomenon lies in part in the criteria they consider to be most important for
becoming an adult:
Accept responsibility for yourself
Make independent decisions
Become financially independent
(Jensen Arnett, 2006)
According to this, its likely Frances also feels in-between adolescence and adulthood. She is
accepting responsibility for herself, but its not working very well. Shes strong enough to be
responsible, but her financial situation is making it very hard. I think Frances doesnt feel like she can
make independent decisions, she actually needs her best friend Sophie for that too. And although their
parents dont support her financially, its not like she can make it on her own during this film. Shes
dependent on the couch of someone else. So its clear she wants to be all of these things that would
make her an adult, but she isnt really there yet.

5. The age of possibilities

Emerging adulthood is the age of possibilities in two ways. One is that emerging adulthood is a time of
great optimism, of high hopes for the future. The second way is that it represents a crucial opportunity
for young people who have experienced difficult conditions in their family lives to move away from
home and to steer their lives in a different and more favourable direction before they enter the
commitments in love and work that structure adult life. Regardless of their family background, all
emerging adults carry their family influences with them when they leave home, which limits the extent
to which they can change what they have become by the end of adolescence. Nevertheless, more
than any other period in life, emerging adulthood presents the possibility of change.
While Frances life isnt exactly going how she wants it to, she actually stays pretty positive. She keeps
trying, and it works out well at the end. For Frances, this period in her life is about optimism and high
hopes. Its also about possibilities, because even when she actually doesnt have the money, she
decides on a Friday night that shes going to Paris for the weekend, because she heard she could stay
in an apartment from some friends. I think she thought: If I ever want to go there, I should go now.
Maybe because she didnt have to pay for a room in a hotel.
Frances chose to live far away from her parents, although it seems the reason was just that New York
is exiting and new instead of a problem with her parents for example. She has a good relationship with
her parents, even though she lies about how good her life is. She just doesnt want them to worry
about her. Because she indeed had the possibility of change, she decided to live in a big city, a plane
away from her parents. And when she leaves them after a short visit during the film, shes almost
crying on the escalator.

Conclusion
Jeffrey Jensen Arnetts theory about emerging adulthood has given me a lot of insights about this
subject. In the beginning, I thought Frances wouldnt be in the adulthood phase because, not only
because shes financially unstable and all, but also because shes actually acting childlike. She picks
up her phone with Yo girl! Whats up? or Ahoy, sexy! and she runs and dances around a lot. The
theory showed that emerging adulthood is actually going a lot deeper than just acting childlike.
Frances doesnt exactly have her life in order. Shes doesnt really have an apartment because shes
not making enough money to pay rent. She takes this seriously and tries to make more out or her job,
but sometimes it seems she doesnt care that much (when she spends all her money by going to Paris
for example).
According to the five features of emerging adulthood, I can establish Frances is still experiencing
emerging adulthood, while she should have been an adult by this age. But she is getting there. At the
end of the film, shes making big steps that are important for her future. It shows she does take her life
and future seriously, but that she wants to do it her way. She wants to do something with dancing to
earn her money, and that happened. After a dancing show where she worked on, shes talking to Benji
(she stayed at his apartment for a few weeks or something). They both admit they are both available,
not dating anyone (undateable). That may lead to something. At the very end of the film, Frances has
her own apartment. Her name is Frances Handley, but thats too long for the mail slot. So she folds the
paper so it reads Frances Ha.

Total:
2554 words
Source:
Jeffrey Jensen, A. (2006) Emerging Adulthood: Understanding the New Way of Coming of Age.