Carrie Rickey

“The structural problems of the script are further compounded by the movie’s peculiar empasis on the latter part of Frances’s life. Frances livens up halfway, once she’s institutionalized, stressing the madwoman convolutions of the story rather than the tragedy of a wasted talent….

“Despite the disappointing pitch of the script and its innocuous realization by first-timer Graeme Clifford, Frances should be seen for Jessica Lange. Though she relies on props to convey Framer’s unchanneled energy and Queeg-like quirkiness (she’s never without notebook, cigarette, orange, or paperclip—her hands are more active than a needlepointer’s), Lange has a rare intelligence and intensity that beam through the bushels of bullshit the filmmakers pile before her. As a Farmer impersonator, Lange’s voice (babyish rather than husky) and posture (head coyly curled toward her shoulders rather than brisk, erect) are all wrong but perfectly right. Like Tuesday Weld, Lange has a brittle tenderness, combining the fluffy alertness of a kitten with the prickly defensiveness of a porcupine. Lange—forever the consummate dazzler in uneven efforts like All That Jazz, King Kong, and Postman—is getting a reputation as a girl who buoys a leaden scenario with considerable skill. If Frances has any complexity, any resonance, it’s because Lange is struggling her damndest to make us feel the heat of Frances Farmer’s pressure cooker. Though the film’s a loser, Lange manages to triumph in characterizing Farmer’s no-win life.”

Carrie Rickey
Village Voice, December 14, 1982