"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
There are many types of love. The paternal love, manifesting itself as pride and devotion. There is the corresponding love of a child for their mother or for their father; a knowingness that, to them, they owe everything, and they are the people in this world they need to make proud. The close-knit love that comes with sibling-hood or a deep friendship. The romantic love, and the life-affirming freedom of vesper that comes with it. Then, there is the type of love most commonly found within movie critiques such as this one; a form of extreme fondness, more often than not for something or someone who has not chosen to have an impact on our collective lives, but has nonetheless continued to do so. When most people think of their favourite movie, they only address it with this fifth breed of love. Today, on the one-year anniversary of Frances Ha's UK release, and hence, me watching it for the first time, I am going to attempt to explain why and how I feel all four for Noah Baumbach's godwork of a movie.
