Alex Thompson
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All in all, Saint Frances compares favorably to Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child (2014) and will hopefully be greeted with the same enthusiasm as its premiere at SXSW in 2019 where the title took home the Audience Award and a Special Jury Award.
O’Sullivan sells this woman’s embrace of not “having it together” with a performance on a par with Jenny Slate’s bracing and funny turn in the similarly themed and pitched “Obvious Child.”
Laughing and crying my way through Saint Frances (the deserving winner of several major festival audience awards), I was reminded of the outraged reactions that greeted Gillian Robespierre’s 2014 comedy Obvious Child , with one conservative critic carping: “If America laughs at this, America is beyond redemption.”
Watching Saint Frances , a millennial dramedy debut from director Alex Thompson and actress/screenwriter Kelly O’Sullivan, will without a doubt remind you a lot of Gillian Robespierre‘s directorial debut in 2014, Obvious Child .
Given that the last major US film to tackle abortion – the similarly masterful Never Rarely Sometimes Always – did so in a powerful and political way, it's interesting to see the issue handled with a lighter, much more humorous but equally authentic touch, one that's closer in tone to 2014's Obvious Child .
The only other movie that deals with realities of abortion with such humour and realism is Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child.
The Florida Project (2017)
Directed by Sean Baker
influenced Saint Frances (2020)
Visuals Characters
With a vibrant color palette and luminous, sun-soaked imagery it is reminiscent of other recent feel-good indies like Stephen Cone’s Princess Cyd and Sean Baker’s The Florida Project .
After hooking up with the younger Jace (Max Lipchitz), Bridget finds herself facing an unwanted pregnancy at around the same time that fate conspires to offer her new employment, nannying for six-year-old Frances (Ramona Edith Williams, channelling the unmannered precocious energy of The Florida Project ’s Brooklynn Kimberly Prince).
Not since Brooklynn Prince in the divine The Florida Project have I been so impressed by such a young actress, though much of her characterisation is also attested to O’Sullivan’s gorgeous script.