Francine
(USA/Canada, 74 min.)
Written and directed by Brian M. Cassidy, Melanie Shatzky
Starring: Melissa Leo, Keith Leonard, Victoria Charkut.
There is great comfort in cats. Francine, played by a
remarkable Melissa Leo, loves her feline friends. She’s a crazy cat lady of
sorts, a Nell-ish ex-convict who struggles with society but finds solace in
furry critters. A quiet, episodic character study, Francine proves a difficult
film experience that might work quickly through all nine lives of some viewers,
but those who stay with it will enjoys its rewards long after.
Francine doesn’t adjust to life too easily. She gets a job
at a pet shop, which seems like a good fit for her since the only hint at joy
she comes across after leaving the slammer is a stray cat she finds at the
lake. Francine takes the lakeside feline and embraces it with kisses. She rubs
the kitty all over her face and signals a trope that will echo alongside the
crickets on the film’s soundtrack. In spite of Francine’s affection for
animals, she struggles to fit in at the pet shop. She walks with the
animals/talks with the animals with skill, but she seems incompetent at
connecting with customers and co-workers. Likewise, Francine is socially inept
outside the workplace: her years of living within the small quarters of her
cell left her as helpless and directionless as a mouse that has escaped its
cage.
Francine slides into trailer-trash odyssey of anti-social
behaviour. Francine, a feral child of sorts, spends much of the film exploring
her habitat with little sense of purpose. She joins a rave, dabbles in
religion, and does it doggy-style with random men. None of these actions sates
her creature comforts, though, so Francine mostly retreats into her squalid
little house.
Francine’s home is filthy ramshackle sty full of
animals. The number of cats and dogs in Francine’s house multiplies at random:
whether she steals them from the shop or brings them in off the street,
Francine adds to her litter ad nauseam. The cats and dogs give Francine some
stability (or instability, depending on how one looks at the situation).
Enjoying the sensual pleasure of the kitties’ fur, Francine finds a placebo to
human connection with her pets. Her love for the pets goes to the point of
putting their paws in her mouth, which is gross, but makes one wonder what kind
of help Francine needs to adjust to life outside of prison. She makes some baby
steps by getting a new job as a veterinarian’s assistant, but this transition
moves Francine into its most emotionally charged segment because Francine
becomes far too attached to the sick little animals to which she gives care. Francine takes a notable turn with an ambiguous long take that observes
Francine’s point-of-view as watches the vet tranquilize a small cat and prepare
it for surgery. As Francine holds the cat’s little paw and watches it go under
the knife, she makes a sharp turn into a strange emotional attachment that
escalates until it erupts.
Told in a strange, observational style by writers/directors
Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky, Francine might be too detached for its
own good. The bare bones/cinema verité aesthetic lets the filmmakers make a semi-comfortable
transition from documentary to narrative feature, but it puts Francine in an
awkward position. Like a dog on a choke chain, Francine rarely travels outside
of medium shot—the camera is trained on her face much of the time; moreover,
with scant dialogue and an elliptical, episodic structure, Francine always
keeps the viewer at a distance. We never learn why Francine went to
prison—perhaps it doesn’t matter—but more than a backstory feels absent. Francine therefore scraps to move beyond a mere character study, and it mostly
stays as an intriguing, if mildly effective character study.
On the other hand, one hardly needs the film to offer much
else when the focus of the handheld camera is trained on a strong actress like
Melissa Leo. If anything, Francine shows that Leo can carry a feature length
film with the silent expressions of her face. She needs nary a word to create a
character, let alone one who is so tangibly downtrodden and destitute. Leo
gives a brave performance in Francine: thanks to her, this tale of a crazy cat
lady is quietly compelling.
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Francine is now available on iTunes.
