ViewGuide

Created Aug 28, 2014 10:59PM PST • Edited Sep 25, 2014 09:24AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Tragically hip alt-rock crosses over into madness in the under-titled Frank, about a charismatic band leader and his devoted bandmates. Here’s the thing: Frank wears a large fake head, all the time.

   Starting in Britain, Frank’s band brings on a guileless recruit before decamping for Ireland, where they stay for an extended period and most of the movie, finishing up at the SXSW festival in Texas.

   An Irish director and British writer give Frank a Top of the Pops sensibility, with an avant-garde bent. Theramin is the least weird part of their music, a mostly atonal mess reminiscent of Captain Beefheart, the Beatles’ Revolution 9 and the Velvet Underground. If you’re familiar with those names, you’ve already made up your mind if this is a movie for you.

   Avant-garde music aside, Frank has much to recommend it: Michael Fassbender; a droll take on musical immortality; a sprinkling of social media savvy. Thus it’s a worthwhile view, albeit not a very likable one.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Domhnall Gleeson carries the movie as a wannabe musician with middling talent and little else to recommend him. Brendan Gleeson’s son has his Dad’s quixotic manner, if not his odd charisma.

   Scoot McNairy seems typecast as slimy characters. Here he’s a sympathetic slimeball.

   Michael Fassbender anchors the movie as the titular Frank, apparently a rendering of Chris Sievey’s comic persona Frank Sidebottom. Fassbender is primarily seen only from the neck down, yet his star power comes through, including knowing how to handle a guitar. Fassbender said of the role:

   He is this sort of frail, geeky character… I definitely ramped up the physicality more than I would do in another film because the expression is essentially from the neck down.

   Maggie Gyllenhaal, François Civil & Carla Azar play his band: organ, bass & drums respectively.

   • Gyllenhaal also plays theramin, when not lording over the others. It’s a good role for her.
   • Civil & Azar are more seen than heard and are appropriately goth.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

   Fassbender – great. Gleeson – good.

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    Popular success both beckons and repels Frank and his bandmates, including via social media in this au courant film. For instance, a wannabe pop star starts with 14 followers, ultimately becoming a minor social media celebrity, learning that 500,000 views is a minimum threshold for such a status.

11. Direction Great 4.0

    Lenny Abrahamson

12. Play Good 3.0

    Jon Ronson played keyboards for the Frank Sidebottom band, later writing the book Men Who Stare at Goats, which was adapted into a screenplay by Peter Straughan, who cowrote Frank with him.

13. Music OK 2.5

    The non avant-garde guy’s early song explorations carry a hint of early British Invasion.

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.2

17. Sex Erotic 2.6

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.2

    Mashup Eighties’ faux pop star Frank Sidebottom with Captain Beefheart. Then update it to today’s Twitterverse and SXSW reality, and you’ve got Frank.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.6

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0