Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Micransix Crappy film

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

mrharrypaulson 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.

clanciai It's incredible that neither Jessica Lange nor Kim Stanley received the Oscar they were nominated for in this gripping film of a true story of a Hollywood actress who didn't make it because of her own over-brilliant personality, getting into conflict with everyone, having problems with adjusting to a society she couldn't agree with from the beginning; and although the film differs slightly from the true story, at large it sticks to the absolute truth at least psychologically. Jessica Lange is just formidable, and this must be her best performance. The interesting thing is that she actually very much looks like Frances Farmer, she was in reality just as beautiful as Jessica Lange if not even more, and her personality in Jessica Lange's impersonation couldn't be more convincing. Her mother Kim Stanley accomplishes a similar feat, and all the other actors tune well in to make this film as perfect a documentary biography as could be accomplished. To this comes the softening and almost seducing music of John Barry gilding the hard lines of the picture and making it more digestible, while my only objection is against the lobotomy ingredient, which is the one departure from reality. Although the terrible nightmare scenes from the asylum had to be included, since they were true, the exaggeration of the lobotomy was unnecessary. Perhaps it was just put there to end the traumatic hospital sequences.Frances Farmer became a legend, and by this film the legend was given an extra injection of continued eternity, and it's a uniquely fascinating portrait of an over-talented actress at odds with a reality, especially Hollywood at that time, that in no way was humanly acceptable.

treeline1 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.

TheRenegadeTaoist To begin with, Thank you to everyone involved in this project.I watched this film and was drawn in to a point of feeling constantly off balance.That says a tremendous amount about the participants. They set the right mood, tone and pace and performed the hell out of their roles.It is, as many have said, an important and underrated film. In truth Frances Farmer was an actress best known for "sensationalized and fictional accounts of her life", a Hollywood legend so to speak for all the wrong reasons. (Especially her involuntary commitment to a mental hospital.) But the this account speaks volumes on the Institution system and treatment of those "non-compliant" with social norms of the time.As in the the film Changeling (2008), this film pricks up our ears to the dis-empowerment of women during that era (which still goes on globally). Like many other women of the period who were deemed disruptive, women often times were forced into the secret custody of a mental institution or denied rights (turned over to spouses, parents or other family). After the passing of the 19th Amendment, as women started to openly assert their independence many establishments tried to maintain their control over the free will of women. In the end they were in large part manipulated by a number of agencies and political machinery and ultimately had involuntary medical treatments/experiments in behavior modification performed (or extensive removals from society). Sadly there was a great deal of old school thinking that feed into that from prior generations of other women. This film pulls no punches in areas that are well documented historically.You can easily see where this film is headed but the deceptively simple script and compelling composition wrings out every bit of viewer-ship you have. I was welded to my seat until the end credits. I would have to say it would be very hard to watch this piece and not want Jessica Lange's "Frances" to win.Great work... definitively should be on the major "must watch" lists.